Simulation Platform for Opportunistic Radio Systems
Artur Pereira, Hélder Fontes, Atílio Gameiro · 2006
Although spectrum is usually considered a scarce resource, measurements have shown that most assigned spectrum is underutilized, and considerable spectrum would be available if both dimensions: space and time are considered in the spectrum management and planning. In most cases there is a "spectrum access" problem rather than a spectrum shortage. The development of policy agile terminals that can sense "holes" in used spectrum and adapt their transmission characteristics to use these "holes" will provide one tool to address and take advantage of spectrum under-utilization. In this communication we describe the development of a simulation tool that addresses the goal of performance evaluation and assessment of such systems in a coexistence environment with primary cellular networks. The communication presents the main features of the tool, discusses and proposes metrics to evaluate the capabilities of the secondary opportunistic networks, and presents illustrative simulation results. These show that even with moderate to high loads in the primary cellular networks, a moderately number of frequencies will allow the deployment of opportunistic radio networks with very small blocking probabilities.