On routing in Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) are expected to address and to resolve important technological and operational challenges of future networks, such as Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA), routing in heterogeneous networks and provision of Quality of Experience (QoE) for different applications. Accordingly, a number of new terminal and network functionalities are required to solve the technical problems and to provide efficient management of CRNs. The paper advances a new solution for routing in CRNs, providing communication between Secondary Users (SUs) occupying different so-called Spectrum Opportunities (SOPs), i.e., portions of spectrum not occupied by Primary Users (PUs). This entails solving a complex process composed by two fundamental elements. These elements are multi-constraint routing and multi-dimensional adaptation for multiple cognitive radio dimensions like space, frequency, power and time. The goal of the paper is to develop optimization algorithms necessary to provide end-to-end (e2e) routing paths for communication between SUs with associated QoE demands.