MAC Protocols for Opportunistic Spectrum Access in Cognitive Radio Networks
Prakash Prasain, Dong‐You Choi · Proceedings of KIIT Summer Conference · 2013
Recently, Cognitive Radio (CR) technology has been proposed as the key technology for future wireless communication that exploits dynamic spectrum access strategies. This offers more flexible way to utilize the wireless spectrum than traditional radio technology based on a fixed spectrum access policy. In cognitive radio networks (CRNs), obtaining the information about spectrum holes on channel, negotiating among primary users and secondary users for spectrum allocation, synchronizing transmission parameters are the important functions of CR medium access control protocols. In this paper, we discuss the basic responsibilities of MAC layer and its functionalities in CRN. Basically, we focus on investigating the recent advances in CR MAC protocols along with their characteristic features, advantages, and drawbacks. At last we provide the major characters of these protocols in tabular form.