Towards exploiting a synergy between cognitive and multi-radio networking

Dynamic spectrum access through Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) and exploiting multiple radios on a single node are two different well accepted techniques for enhancing network performance. However, simultaneous usage of both the techniques, i.e., augmenting dynamic spectrum access with multiple radios, is yet to be investigated in the literature. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate simultaneous usage of both the techniques. In our investigation, we perform rigorous ns-2 simulation. Simulation results reveal a key finding - augmenting spectrum harvesting with multiple radios makes throughput worse, however, can improve delay. Besides, as the simulation results do not reveal micro-level aspects of the improved delay performance, we perform mathematical modeling of the delay to do so. Further, we present numerical results based on the models to demonstrate the micro-level aspects.