Generic interface architecture supporting cognitive resource management in future wireless networks

The proliferation of different wireless technologies has led to fragmentation of interfaces and APIs that are used to control and manage air interfaces and wireless links. The emergence of new networking and application concepts that support increasingly heterogeneous access methods, especially when combined with future cognitive radio technologies, significantly increase the already high complexity of development projects and software architectures. Dissimilar wireless interfaces also complicate the development of middleware components for higher layers of the protocol stack. In this article we present a new generic interface and API architecture that has been developed and prototyped in several different wireless platforms to address these problems. We introduce the basic framework of the architecture, and explain how generic and open interfaces can significantly lower development and deployment costs. The developed interface architecture can be seen as a lower level middleware, or as an enabling technology to implement different technology transparent network middlewares. We also briefly comment about prototyping and standardization status of technology.