Extending Policy Languages with Utility and Prioritization Knowledge: The CAPRI Approach

Cognitive Radio research has been focusing mostly on Dynamic Spectrum Access concepts, and one of the key architectural components there is the capability to express and regulate Policies. In this paper we will report on our work of extending the existing policy language and server concepts to a wider context. As cognitive radios will eventually become software defined radios, there is a number of non-spectrum related policies that require management. In fact, there is a rich interplay between spectrum and other policies, and they can influence each other in the final policy reasoning. We discuss the rationale on extending policy languages to include functional description of utilities that users and applications perceive. We add also various ways to express priorities and preferences between technologies and services. Further we report on the on-going work and results, which we have obtained on implementing such extensions as a part of CoRaL language that has been proposed earlier by SRI. We also outline policy implications of such extensions.