Spectrum aware distance utilization routing protocol for cognitive radio networks

Abstract

The increasing demand of wireless applications has led to the problem of spectrum scarcity. The new networking paradigm is widely known as Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA). DSA can be realized by use of cognitive radio (CR) technology. A CR provides an opportunistic utilization of an underutilized spectrum to the node with which it is equipped. Usually a nonlicensed user/node is equipped with a CR. Recent research has mainly been focused on Spectrum sensing, sharing, mobility and decision making which allows one to make use available free spectrum blocks opportunistically, but less emphasis have been laid on routing in multi-hope cognitive radio networks (CRNs). The feasibility of a multi-hope CRN depends entirely on routing scheme employed in it, as it ensures end-to-end delivery of data packets. Hence to make CRNs more efficient and prominent, an effective routing layer is required which is aware of the dynamics of CRNs. This work proposes a Spectrum Aware Distance Utilization Routing Protocol for (CRNs). The proposed protocol aims at providing optimal routing paths, which offers high spectrum availability with minimum path length between any pair of Source and Destination, hence enhancing routing in multi-hop CRNs. For optimal path formulation, it uses spectrum availability and link utilization factor. Through extensive simulations the efficiency of the proposed protocol found better than the existing ones.