The challenges towards energy-efficient cognitive radio networking

The Cognitive Radio (CR) technology is envisioned as a primary solution to the spectrum scarcity problem in future wireless communication networks. Cognitive radio networking allows the exploitation of unutilized spectrum in an opportunistic manner, and thereby, improves the efficiency of the spectrum utilization. Cognitive radio Networks (CRNs) provide wireless connectivity via heterogeneous wireless architectures and dynamic spectrum access techniques. The enabling technologies and the benefits of CR and CRNs have received significant research and industry interest. However, the energy efficiency of such technologies has received far less interest. In this paper, we shed the light on the move towards energy-efficient CRN that fits the global vision of green communication networks.