High-Level Parallel Programming Models and Supportive Environments

Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) are the key enabling technology for realizing Opportunistic Spectrum Access (OSA) to alleviate the severe spectrum underutilization and provide a solution to the wireless spectrum scarcity. OSA refers to the communications paradigm in which the communicating parties dynamically exploit the spectrum bands that are not utilized by the primary wireless services licensed to operate over such bands. CRNs are foreseen as the future of wireless communication technologies that provide wireless connectivity for emerging services. The main component of CRNs, and hence OSA, is the cognitive radio transceiver. A cognitive radio is a wireless device that senses the surrounding radio environment and opportunistically accesses the unutilized spectrum band(s) based on its assessment of the activities of the surrounding primary licensed networks. OSA in distributed ad-hoc CRNs is the focus of significant research interest, especially from a theoretical perspective. The resulting theoretical OSA approaches are challenged by the practical limitations of existing cognitive radios. The focus of this book is on the less well-studied issue of implementing distributed Opportunistic Spectrum Access given practical radio transceiver technologies. This book distinguishes itself from the existing affluent literature of CRNs and OSA. Existing literature can be classified into two categories: One that presents a self-contained introduction of the emerging Cognitive Radio Networking paradigm outlining the theoretical fundamentals and requirements for enabling such a technology. The emphasis of such books is on the theoretical design, optimization, and performance evaluation of Opportunistic Spectrum Access in CRNs. The second— and more related—category is mainly concerned with the implementation of CRNs using software-defined radios (SDR). While SDR provided seamless flexibility in the design and implementation of CRNs due to the fact that the design is carried out in software, SDR-based CRN implementations lag orders of magnitude behind realistic communication speeds. In contrast, this book: