Language Issues for Cognitive Radio

This paper discusses various aspects of formal languages in the context of cognitive radio. A bottom up approach is taken in which an example of a specification of a feature of cognitive radio in a selected language is shown, followed by an example of a feature that cannot be expressed in the language and the identification of a capability that needs to be added to the language in order to cover the identified gap in the expressiveness. Following this pattern, we start with a language based on description logics and add the capability of expressing rules, then functions, and finally behavioral aspects. The running example used in this paper - conveying the description of a component to be synthesized by another radio - covers two major aspects of a cognitive radio: an ability to express own capabilities and an ability to interoperate with other cognitive radios.