Initializing mesh architecture for cognitive radio based IEEE 802.22

Recently, FCC defined provisions to open the sub- 900 MHz licensed TV bands for unlicensed services as one of the major steps towards dynamic spectrum access. The newly proposed IEEE 802.22 standard based on cognitive radio is seen as the solution that can harness the unused spectrum in a spatial and temporal manner while avoiding interference with licensed devices. On the other hand, the advent of wireless mesh networks has enabled a new technology for creating wide-area wireless backhaul networks with increased network resource utilization and greater performance characteristics. In this paper, we propose a scheme for IEEE 802.22 enabled devices to establish a mesh architecture. Coordination is initiated by the base station and is followed by the gradual joining of the IEEE 802.22 consumer premise equipments to the mesh in a repeated, distributed manner. Through simulation experiments, we demonstrate how the proposed mesh creation algorithm helps minimize mesh initialization latency, reduce control signaling and average number of collisions among IEEE 802.22 devices.