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Chapter 1.Introduction
In recent years there has been an enormous growth in wireless communication devices and wireless users. The ever increasing demand for higher speed and reliability made researchers think about intelligent radios like Cognitive Radios (CR). But major amount of spectrum is available for licensed users. There are various communication bodies like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) also European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) who works on standards of communication that defines the use of spectrum for licensed and unlicensed users.
1.1 Background
Spectrum is a valuable resource in communication. Over the past few years as the use of various wireless technology is increasing rapidly so we either need more spectrum or make efficient use of current spectrum to satisfy their needs. One way of making efficient use of spectrum is employing spectrum sharing technique. There are many spectrum sharing techniques available like energy detection, cyclostationary feature detector, and matched filter. Of the above technique matched filter and cyclostationary gives more accurate result but they are bit complex and computationally harder as compared to energy detection technique. Energy detection is the simplest of above three and computationally less complex.
1.2 Motivation
Survey has shown that at any given time only portion of spectrum is utilized. According to a report published by FCC (Federal Communications Commission - America) in 2003 has set a set of rule for efficient use of spectrum for licensed and unlicensed users. Also OFCOM (Office of Communications - United Kingdom) has noticed the underutilization of spectrum. At any given time only portion of spectrum is utilized. Even if the system says there are no frequencies available, there is still some frequency available. These available frequencies are known as spectrum holes or white spaces. Some of the bands are completely occupied by users while some bands go unutilized. And that is inefficient use of spectrum. We must have noticed that in cases of emergencies like the train bomb blast in July 2006 in Mumbai, India cellular network actually failed to support huge amount of customer at the same time, this was also the case during 9/11 in USA. If we were having cognitive radios at that time peoples would have been able to talk to their families and inform about their safety. As we are moving from 3G (Third generation) to 4G (Fourth Generation) we need to make certain changes in our wireless technologies. Below shown is the measurement of 0 GHz to 6 GHz at Berkley Wireless Research Center (BWRC).
In this chapter we are going to discuss about the cognitive radios, like what are they and why are they so important to us. The chapter begins with a short history of cognitive radios, which is followed by a general discussion on OFDM, some of the challenges faced by cognitive radios in real environment, and also some of the applications of cognitive radios. We have tried to explain spectrum sensing in brief and the techniques used for spectrum sensing in today's world. Finally a business model for spectrum sensing is showed which is preceded by multi-resolution of Cognitive radios.
shown that more than 50% of the spectrum is underutilized. This is where Cognitive Radio (CR) is comes into picture. CR is introduced to solve the problem of spectrum sharing. Cognitive Radios actually scans the spectrum and during scanning it looks for spectrum holes. The main objective of the cognitive radios is to look for opportunities or white spaces in spectrum band as quickly and as much as possible. And when we say opportunity, opportunity could be in time or frequency domain. Also when we locate this spectrum holes opportunistically we also need to vacant the occupied spectrum as soon as primary user comes back. Here primary user means the users whose spectrum we are using (licensed user) and secondary means the unlicensed users. Cognitive radio is a pattern for wireless communication technology in which either a network or a wireless node changes its transmission or reception parameters to communicate efficiently avoiding interference with licensed or unlicensed users. These altered parameters are associated with the active monitoring of several factors in the external and internal radio environment e.g. radio frequency spectrum, user behaviour. Cognitive radio can be said as next generation of software defined radio (SDR). They are flexible in terms of their transmission characteristics in terms of frequency, bandwidth, ISP which makes smart decisions to configure the SDR at any point in time to achieve a particular goal. By combining these two technologies makes a radio intelligent and flexible and which helps to adapt it to the variations in the environment, user requirements as per the other radio users. Adaptation to changes and requirements should lead to highly reliable communication whenever and wherever required, while making efficient use of spectrum. Good cognitive radio uses analysis done for long period to know about the environment and also his own behaviour. There are various parameters taken into account to decide transmission and reception changes, we can distinguish certain types of cognitive radio. The main two are as follow:
Full Cognitive Radio : It is also known as "Mitola radio" in which every possible parameter which can be observed by a wireless node is taken into consideration to take decision Spectrum Sensing Cognitive Radio: It is the type in which only the radio frequency spectrum is considered.
And Depending on the parts of the spectrum available for cognitive radio, we can distinguish as:
Licensed Band Cognitive Radio: It is the type in which cognitive radio is capable of using bands assigned to licensed users, apart from unlicensed bands, such as U-NII band or ISM band. Unlicensed Band Cognitive Radio: This can only utilize unlicensed parts of radio frequency spectrum only or the bands which are free to use.
When we say A is orthogonal to B, we mean that A has no vector in direction of B and vice versa or in other words A and B is mutually independent. Or the integral of two signals over one period is 0. In OFDM a single signal is first multiplexed and modulated independently to create orthogonal signals. This means the signal is first divided into number of smaller streams and then modulated further before transmission. For example imagine a slicing of cheese and grilling or cheese. Slicing is like FDM where whole data is sent in a bunch and grilling is like OFDM where the data to be sent is first divided into smaller data and then processed to transmit further like OFDM. Figure shown below is one more way to understand the concept of OFDM. On the left hand side is a big container which carry whole bunch of data at one time and take it to the destination. And on right hand side is four smaller containers where each carry smaller portion of data and take it to the destination. These smaller containers can be assumed as sub-carriers. And in case of OFDM they are orthogonal sub-carriers. The main advantage over here is that even if some of the cheese is lost during grilling, still we have not lost all the cheese. In OFDM input data with high data rate is first passed thorough serial to parallel converter. This parallel divided data is then modulated on individually. And parallel to serial conversion is done before transmission. This parallel divided data is our sub-carriers. These sub-carriers must be orthogonal.
c. Spectrum Mobility: It is defined as the process when a cognitive radio device exchanges its frequency of operation. Cognitive radio networks target to use the spectrum in a dynamic manner by allowing the radio terminals to operate in the best available frequency band, maintaining seamless communication requirements during the transition to better spectrum. d. Spectrum Sharing: providing the fair spectrum scheduling method. One of the major challenges in open spectrum usage is the spectrum sharing. It can be regarded to be similar to generic media access control MAC problems in existing systems
CR may be vulnerable to malicious effect, resulting into unexpected or problematic behaviour of individual CRs or complete networks. This problem springs up from the potential to re-program CRs in an unauthorized way. Hacking or placing a vulnerable code, virus on a network might enable criminals to steal valuable information from a CR through electronically, fool a network operator into charging others for services or achieve potentially widespread denial-of-service. A considerable amount of regulatory work will require to be done to clarify who would be responsible for the various security areas of CR, software developers, manufacturers, network operators and CR users themselves may all have a role to play. The CR security issue is closely related to that of SDR, which already discussed and hence not repeated here. Instead, a brief summary of the issues is given. Downloading software updates over an air interface poses some specific problems for security. Several digital signatures will be required for each piece of downloaded software in order to meet likely regulatory requirements. Exactly who is necessary to authorize software downloads must be standardized before any large scale deployment of over-the-air updates can be realized.
Downloading of audio and video files on mobile handsets. This application requires moderate data rates and near-ubiquitous coverage. Emergency services communications: It requires interoperability and a moderate data rate with local coverage. Broadband wireless networking: Very high data rate required but CR users have option to accept limited coverage, e.g. hot spots. Multimedia wireless and sensor networking: Broad range of data rates may be required.
Signals are modulated with sine waves or cyclic prefix as in OFDM. And they are periodic. This periodic property of a signal helps it to be cyclostationary. This technique basically uses this principle of spectral correlation to detect the spectrum. Even if signals have similar PSD (Power Spectral Density) but they have do not have similar spectral correlation.
user. If it is assigned exclusively then nobody can access that band of frequency, and if not then those bands of frequencies will be available for sharing. iii. TradabilityTradability means whether or not a terminal is allowed to switch between frequencies from different operators. If tradability is permitted frequency band or bands can be auctioned for sale or given on lease. iv. NeutralityIt is possible that some of frequency bands can be accessed by number of RAT's (radio Access Technology) or may be limited to a particular RAT. If frequency bands are not available to number of RAT's then that band need to address more issues, such as setting technical conditions to access the band and coordinating the cooperation between multiple technologies. 1. Unlicensed: Unlicensed deals with the band of frequencies which are free to use, like ISM band. Common example for this is Wi-Fi which operates in 2.4GHz. This band of frequency is available to all and there is special condition to access this band. 2. Single RAT Pool: This pool is related to a group of licensee's which are not exclusively assigned any band of frequency and using same RAT. 3. Multi RAT Pool: It is similar to Single RAT Pool except that it has multiple RATs. 4. Single RAT Market: In this each operator is assigned with a separate frequency, but that can be accessed by the conditionally secondary's. 5. Multi RAT Market: In this the operator is a licensee and is exclusively assigned with a band of frequency, and also with tradability. 6. Flexible Operator and Static Spectrum: If a particular band of spectrum is exclusively assigned to an operator and without tradability. And if there is only one RAT, then it is known as Static Spectrum else Flexible Operator.
Sampling is a process of converting the continuous analog signal to a discreet analog signal and the samples signal is the discreet time representation of the original signal. If the message is coming from a digital source, then it is in the form to be processed by digital communication systems. But in real life not every signal is digital, message signal can be analog. In situation like these, we have to first convert the analog signal into discreet time signal, this is sampling. For this process to work well, sampling rate should be selected carefully or in other words it should satisfy Nyquist criterion. And Nyquist Criterion says that the sampling frequency should be at least twice the maximum frequency in signal. Fs 2fmax or T=1/ fmax Where Fs is sampling frequency, fmax is maximum frequency in the signal. T=Sampling period. Sampling is like reading a signal in analog form and taking its value at that instant of time. So more the samples we take better the resolution of the signal and, signal can be recovered more accurately. But if we take less number of samples, then resolution of the signal decreases. If we go on reducing the sampling rate, then times comes when it is difficult to recover the original signal from the sampled signal or in other words original information in the signal is lost. This is also known as aliasing. Aliasing is the effect which takes place if the signal is sampled less than twice the maximum frequency.
Band Pass sampling theorem states thatA Bandpass signal x(t) whose maximum bandwidth is 2W can be completely represented into and recovered from its samples if it is sampled at minimum rate of twice the bandwidth. Figure 3.4 shows us the spectrum of low pass signal and its spectrum after sampling. Low pass signal are the signal which works well under Nyquist criterion (Fs 2fmax) without any special alteration. There is another type of sampling known as Band-pass sampling. This is the type of sampling applied to a high frequency signals or the signals which cannot pass through low pass filters. These signals have high frequency, normally in 100's of mega hertz. Here we cannot use Nyquist theorem directly. As practically it is not possible to sample a signal at such a high frequency. So what we do is, we represent the signal in terms of inphase (I) and quadrature (Q) components of a signal before sampling. This I and Q component is made by multiplying I and Q with sin(2*fc*t) and cos(2*fc*t) respectively. We can also say that we are actually moving a window of size of the bandwidth over the center frequency of the signal. In our Matlab code we have used low pass sampling even though the frequencies are quite high, because it is not a practical model but a simulation model. In low pass sampling we sample the whole available while in band pass signal we sample a window of bandwidths.
White spaces get created because all the bands in the frequency bands in the spectrum are not used efficiently. Because we have different technologies working in various bands of spectrum but we do not have any practical implementation on large scale of any radio to work on whole spectrum at same time.
And, Rs=4*fc=819.199*106. Carrier spacing = (kmax * (kmin-1))/Tu = (1705*1704/100*10-6) = 29036.16*106 Spacing between two carriers = 29036.16*106 / 1705 = 17.03*106 Hz. Now, we are having total 1705 symbols that are transmitted with a rate of T/2 seconds to IFFT block. That is, one symbol is transmitted every T/2 seconds. As we are using 4-QAM, it means we are using 2 bits per symbol. That is, two bits are transmitted every T/2 seconds. Therefore, one bit every T/4 seconds. So, the bit rate for OFDM symbol 1 = T/4 = 122.07*10-6 seconds.
Spacing between two carriers = 36295.2 * 106 * 106 / 1705 = 21.28*106 Hz. Similarly to case 1 bit rate for OFDM signal 2 is calculated as, One bit is transmitted every T2/4 seconds. So, the bit rate for OFDM symbol 2 = T2/4 = 9.765*10-9 seconds. And from our code, to change the center frequency we just need to alter Tu (useful OFDM symbol period) or the sampling frequency Sf. For Tu as 100 micro seconds and 115 micro seconds we are getting OFDM signals with center frequencies around 200 MHz and 265 MHZ respectively. In this way we have created a white space of around 40 MHz's. In this chapter we found the center frequency measurement technique which is followed by results analysis in the next part of our thesis.
Multipath interference gives rise to frequency selective fading and Inter Symbol Interference (ISI). Because OFDM has narrow band we get flatness in channel which helps to overcome frequency selective fading. Modulation of symbols in OFDM is done at very low rate, this makes symbol much longer than our channel impulse response, and this in turn helps to overcome ISI. That is one of the reasons why we have chosen OFDM for our simulation. In our Matlab code we have generated two OFDM signal, both with different centre frequencies. This two signals acts like the signals transmitted by two different transmitters and they met up in air. So we have added these two signals. Now signal can be considered as the signal received at the receiver end of the system, as we have not considered noise in our system. Then we have found the energy of this added signal and calculated its energy.
(a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2 (a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2
The purpose of zero padding is to assure frequency domain symbols are communicated in orthogonal sub channels. The length of the cyclic prefix is to be kept at least as long as impulse response of the channel at the receiver. Due to sharp transitions OFDM signal causes spurious emission which in turn leads to attenuation and thus further lengthening the impulse response of the channel. This is then followed by an IFFT block which performs IFFT on the signal info'. At its output we get a signal carriers' which is an IFFT of info with 4096 points. Signal carriers' is plotted in time domain and frequency domain in figure 4.1, 4.11 and figure 4.2 and 4.12 respectively. We can notice that signal carriers' has time period of T/2 and signal carriers' is a baseband signal. To plot the signal in frequency domain pwelch' function is used. pwelch' function gives the power spectral density (PSD) of a signal by employing modified periodogram method. The output of the IFFT block is then fed to the reconstruction filter or low pass filter. Filter filters out the frequency components out of band and only passes frequencies which are in band. The signal carriers' is sent the through the filter g(t).
(a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2 (a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2
Signal carriers after pulse shaping in frequency domain.For reconstruction filter we are using bandwidth as Rs' and time period as 2/T. Therefore we have (2/T=40.95 MHz) - 17 MHz = 23 MHz (for OFDM signal 1) and (2/T2=51.20 MHz) - 17 MHz = 34.20 MHz (for OFDM signal 2) as our transition bandwidth for the filter's. At the output of filter we get periodic frequency response as required by discreet time system as seen in figure 4.6 and 4.16. Now, in our code the signal carriers' is used to produce signal chips' which is then convolved and pulsed shaped to form a signal dummy' and u'. In Matlab convolution is similar to multiplication of two signals. The signal u' is plotted in time and frequency domain in figure 4.4, 4.14 and figure4.5, 4.15 respectively. The signal u' is the passed through a filter. As a filter we used Butterworth filter of order 13 with approximate cut off frequency of 1/T. Figure 6 shows the filter response.
And figure 4.9 (a)/(b) and 4.10 (a)/(b) shows the out of filter uoft' in time and frequency domain.
(a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2 (a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2
Signal output after filtering in frequency domain. Lastly we do Up-Conversion on the signal. Up-Conversion actually converts the baseband OFDM signal to an IF (Intermediate Frequency) signal, so that the signal is ready for transmission. It also minimizes the impulse response duration of the OFDM signal. Input to the Up converter is stream of baseband symbols. Till now we got I' and Q. Now this I and Q are modulated with sin () and cos () and then finally added and then transmitted. Where = 2*fc*t. below figure show time response of our OFDM signal.
(a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2 (a) OFDM Signal 1(b) OFDM Signal 2
These baseband symbols are sampled at baseband sampling rate. Each symbol takes one of the M complex values. The value of the complex number and M forms the basic parameter for modulation. For example, 16-QAM will have 16 different complex numbers on complex plane or signal constellation; 4-QAM will have four different complex values. Up conversion is also necessary as, for the frequencies which are in Giga Hertz (GHz) traditional signal processing devices do not perform well and transistors become unstable. And one more reason for that is, it is difficult to implement amplifiers and filters that can be tuned to different frequencies, rather it would be much easier to implement a tuneable oscillator. This gives us the simulation analysis of OFDM signal 1.Generation of OFDM signal 2 is similar to OFDM signal 1. The only change we have done is in Tu (OFDM period). In first case Tu is 100 micro seconds, while in second signal Tu is 80 microseconds. This gives us OFDM signal 1 with center frequency as 42 MHz and OFDM 2 signal with center frequency 85 Mega Hertz. By creating OFDM signal 1 and OFDM signal 2 we have managed to generate two frequency band in a spectrum which we will using to testing the spectrum sensing. These to signals are transmitted in air and at the receiver we will be receiving another signal which will be the addition of these two. To keep our code simple we are not adding noise to our system. In future we plan to study the simulation of our system with noise. So in next part of our code we add these two signals. Signal s_tilde from OFDM signal 1 and signal s_tilde2 from OFDM signal 2 is added in time domain.
This added signal has real as well as imaginary components. So we remove imaginary parts by taking only real part of the signal and using it for further analysis. This real part of the added signal is then plotted in time domain and frequency domain. Next task is to sense the spectrum. For sensing the spectrum we are using Energy detection technique. In which we basically we sample the whole spectrum and take energy at each time sample. This energy which is taken at each time sample is then compared to a threshold.
Chapter 5 - Conclusion
The main aim of this thesis was to understand Cognitive radios, spectrum sensing and to provide a basic simulation tool for future work. Spectrum sensing and Cognitive radios are discussed in details and simulation is performed using Matlab. Various spectrum sensing techniques have been discussed, and simulation is done using Energy detection Technique, because it is one of the fastest detection technique and also simplest of all. Mean value of energy is taken as the threshold for spectrum sensing. However we have not considered noise in our system for simplicity, but it cannot be ignored in real time systems. And with this we conclude our thesis, but we still need to keep in mind that more work need to do in Cognitive radios.