Distributed contention based MAC protocol for cognitive radio networks with QoS provisioning

In this paper we propose a medium access control protocol for single-hop cognitive radio network which distributes the contention for channel access onto respective channel instead of common control channel. The design utilizes rendezvous channel as a media for distributing information about the nodes and channels in the network. The distribution of contention on different channels mitigate the harmful effects of control channel saturation. The proposed protocol also caters the quality of service need for different applications by prioritizing packets accordingly. Simulation is done to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol.