rapid increase in the number of wireless devices highlights the importance of intensive dynamic use of the available spectrum.

The achievement of dynamic capacity concept will involve the development of new spectrum policies and regulations. The expected major enables for dynamic spectrum access techniques are Cognitive Radio (CR) systems. Cognitive radio is an intelligent radio potentially has the ability of self-reconfiguration and adaptation to the communication environment

Scope of the Series

The IEEE JSAC cogntive radio series will serve as a platform for communicating state-of-the-art research for cognitive radio, highlighting the research challenges that remain unanswered and further exploring innovative solutions for resolving them. Accordingly, we invite the submission of high-quality manuscripts in the relevant sub-topics of cognitive radio, which have not been published previously and are not currently under review by any journal.

The general scope of this series includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Information-theoretic aspects of cognitive radios Spectrum sensing techniques for cognitive radios Physical (PHY) layer design of cognitive radios (e.g., transmitter waveform design, multiple access schemes, ) Medium access control (MAC) design for cognitive radio networks Routing, spectrum mobility, and dynamic resource management Cross-layer optimization for cognitive radio networks Cooperative techniques and energy-efficiency design of cognitive radio networks Security issues in cognitive radio networks Artificial intelligence and machine learning for cognitive radios Spectrum sharing and dynamic spectrum access Spectrum pricing, economics models and game theory for dynamic spectrum access Bio-inspired network design and network sciences Emerging applications of cognitive radio (heterogeneous networks, small cells, D2D communications, green communications, )

Scope and Topics of Interest

The Cognitive Radio and Networks Symposium will focus on the emerging cognitive radio communications and networking technologies, which aim at mitigating the spectrum underutilization problem in wireless accessing networks, improving the interoperability and coexistence among different wireless/mobile communications systems, and making the future generation radio devices/systems autonomous and self-reconfigurable. The goal of this symposium is to bring together and disseminate the state-of-the-art research contributions that address the various aspects of analysis, optimization, design, implementation, and application of cognitive radio communications and networking technologies.

To ensure complete coverage of the advances in the cognitive radio communications and networking technologies, this Symposium presents original contributions in, but not limited to, the following topical areas: Spectrum sensing, measurements and statistical modeling of spectrum usage Waveform design, modulation, interference aggregation, mitigation for cognitive radio Distributed cooperative spectrum sensing and multiuser access Cognitive medium access control, interference management, handoff and routing protocols Resource allocation for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)-based cognitive radio communications Distributed adaptation and optimization methods Cross-layer optimization of cognitive radio systems Challenges and issues in designing cognitive radios and networks Architectures and building blocks of cognitive radio networks Energy-efficient environment-friendly cognitive radio communications and networking (green cognitive radio) Cognitive intelligent techniques (e.g., machine learning, transfer learning, information-theoretic learning, bio-inspired intelligence) Self-configuration, interoperability and co-existence issues Dynamic spectrum accessing and sharing in unlicensed bands Security and robustness of cognitive spectrum-agile networks Applications and services based on cognitive radio networks (e.g., cognitive networking in TV whitespace, cognitive femtocell networks, public safety networks, and vehicular networks) Economic aspects of spectrum sharing (e.g., pricing, auction) in cognitive radio networks Regulatory policies and their interactions with communications and networking Cognitive radio standards, test-beds, simulation tools, and hardware prototypes

COGNITIVE RADIO
A main aim in this area is to conduct research on cognitive radio technologies at radio access level in close collaboration with industry and country regulator and participate in relevant standardization bodies (e.g. P1900, ETSI RRS etc). In particular, we have research expertise in spectrum sensing algorithms, cooperative sending mechanisms, dynamic spectrum allocations and sharing, signal processing for cognitive radio, white space modelling, coexistence of heterogeneous architectures, interference management in cognitive networks, reconfigurable architectures and green communications using cognitive radio.
The rapid increase in the number of wireless devices highlights the importance of intensive dynamic use of the available spectrum. The achievement of dynamic capacity concept will involve the development of new spectrum policies and regulations. The expected major enables for dynamic spectrum access techniques are Cognitive Radio (CR) systems. Cognitive radio is an intelligent radio potentially has the ability of self-reconfiguration and adaptation to the communication environment. From the definition, the main functionalities required for the cognitive radio systems can be summarised as follows: Spectrum Sensing: sensing and monitoring the available spectrum bands reliably to detect the unused portion of the primary user spectrum. Spectrum Decision: the cognitive radio can allocate a channel based on the regularly policies and spectrum sensing results. Spectrum Sharing: coordination among multiple cognitive radio users is needed to pre-vent the

colliding in the available portion of the spectrum. Spectrum Mobility: the cognitive radio user is regarded as visitor to the primary user spectrum, and a reliable communication cannot be sustained for a long time if the primary user uses the licensed spectrum frequently. Therefore, the cognitive radio system should support mobility to continue the communication in other vacant bands.

Collaborative Spectrum Sensing

One of the main challenges of CR is gaining spectrum awareness, thus being able to undertake reliable and sufficiently sensitive spectrum sensing. It enables the cognitive radio to be aware of and sensitive to the changes in its environments by detecting the white spaces in the primary user spectrum. In general, the spectrum sensing techniques can be broadly categorized into three groups: primary receiver detection, interference temperature management and primary transmitter detection. The research in this area focuses on: Spectrum Sensing Algorithms. Collaborative Spectrum Sensing.

Dynamic Spectrum Management (DSM)

The achievement of dynamic capacity concept will involve the development of new spectrum policies and regulations. Dynamic use of spectrum can improve spectrum utilisation and hence is a promising approach to satisfy increasing demand for spectrum. The research in CCSR mainly focus in: Dynamic Load prediction algorithms. Cell-by-cell short term DSA for UMTS Multi-operator. Genetic Algorithm based DSA for wireless networks.

Interference Management in CRN

Current research is in the area of: Distributed power control (DPC) algorithms for CR. Joint rate and power control in cognitive femtocell. Antenna selection schemes for Cognitive Radio.

Diagram of scope of activities in cognitive radio in CCSR (click to enlarge)

Cognitive Radio Testbed

Our in house cognitive radio testbed includes the following features: USRP hardware which includes Ettus USRP motherboard RFX2400 transceivers Quad patch 2.4GHz antenna 2 Linux workstations with GNU radio installed WARP-based Cognitive Radio Testbed.

WARP-based Cognitive Radio Testbed Members of CCSR have been extensively involved in the definition and execution of EU FP6/FP7 projects such as DRiVE/OVERDRiVE, WINNER, ROCKET, MOBILIFE, SPICE, ORACLE, E2R I/II,

E3 and more recently in C2POWER and QoSMOS. We are also a key player in Mobile VCE and chair the IEEE standardisation group P1900.6.

ASSOCIATED EXPERTS
Dr Muhammad Ali Imran Dr Payam Barnaghi Dr Tim Brown Dr Mehrdad Dianati Professor Barry Evans Professor Klaus Moessner Professor Rahim Tafazolli