Test & Evaluation of Cognitive and Dynamic Spectrum Access Radios Using the Cognitive Radio Test System

As the demand placed on wireless networks continues to rapidly grow, devices must utilize available resources as efficiently as possible. Cognitive Radio (CR) provides an attractive solution to this problem, wherein devices learn from their experiences and make intelligent choices to optimize their own performance along with that of the network as a whole. Spectrum sharing is one promising method that has gained much interest as seen by the recent development of LTE-Unlicensed and because of the large amount of spectrum that the federal government plans to open to the public for this very purpose. Research in this area is ongoing and many approaches have been proposed and studied. While the theoretical concepts and algorithms related to this technology are developed, it is important that an efficient test and evaluation methodology exist in order to bridge the gap from theory to practice. The Cognitive Radio Test System (CRTS) is being developed for just this purpose. CRTS is being developed using the CORNET testbed at Virginia Tech, which consists of 48 Software-Defined Radio (SDR) nodes spread through a building on campus. A flexible and extensible base framework for CRTS has been developed and its initial capabilities demonstrated.