Research Domains for Cognitive Radio: A Survey

Cognitive Radio (CR) is one of the most transformative innovation recently emerged in the field of Wireless Networks. CR is famous due to the limited electromagnetic spectrum and the fixed spectrum assignment policy. CR technology helps to solve the spectrum scarcity problem by using its intelligent radio which senses and adapts to the environment. It locates the unused radio spectrum which is allocated to the licensed users and helps to reallocate the unused spectrum to unlicensed users thereby improving the utilization of the spectrum. This paper points out various challenges and limitations faced by areas such as wireless sensor networks, vehicular networks, smart grid, healthcare, and public safety networks and highlights the improvements made to the utilization of the spectrum as well as the quality of communication, which makes these networks more efficient. An overview of CR along with its various research domains are presented in the paper.