A Novel Cognitive Networking Scenario for IEEE 802.16 Networks

The lack of free frequency spectrum is becoming one of the most important problems in implementing novel wireless systems. The limited available spectrum and the inefficiency in the spectrum usage requires for a new communication paradigm to exploit the existing wireless spectrum. The key idea is based on the cognitive radio paradigm. Cognitive radio allows to different, independent networks to share a certain spectrum interval with low mutual interference. In the last years, one of the most important wireless system is the WiMAX, which is based on the OFDMA technique. The aim of this paper is to propose a cognitive networking environment where the primary network is constituted by an IEEE 802.16 network. Two approaches will be discussed for the secondary networks, by considering an ordinated technique and a collision resolution technique for both the network set-up and access control.