MAC protocol for energy-harvesting users in Cognitive Radio networks

Abstract

In a Cognitive Radio (CR) network, secondary users search idle spectrum and use the channel intelligently to increase spectral efficiency. In a CR network with energy-harvesting secondary users, differentiated contention strategy is desirable. Since the energy is finite for users, efficient energy use is needed in a energy-harvesting system to increase lifetime of user devices. In this paper, an efficient sensing and contention algorithm for energy-harvesting CR users is considered. We propose an algorithm to give priority to low energy users to ensure the transmission opportunity before going into the sleep mode. An energy efficient sensing strategy is also presented. High energy users are controlled to go to the sleep mode more than low energy users to reduce the number of contending nodes and save energy consumption for channel sensing. Copyright 2014 ACM.