Centralized modeling of the communication space for spectral awareness in cognitive radio networks

The communication space is five dimensional: its degrees of freedom are frequency, time and space. The use of the electromagnetic spectrum depends on these parameters. With future applications such as opportunistic overlay access or distributed spectrum monitoring in mind, it is important to estimate the state of the communication space on the basis of incomplete or imprecise information. A promising approach are technology centric Cognitive Radio networks. In these networks, nodes cooperate to infer information on spectral occupancy. This conceptual paper proposes a novel approach for centralized modeling of the communication space with emphasis on spatial dependencies through the use of a regression model. The modeling approach is verified with practical measurements.