A MAC Protocol for CR-WSN without a Dedicated Common Control Channel

Abstract

We present a decentralized medium access control protocol for cognitive radio wireless sensor networks. The proposed protocol allows secondary wireless sensors nodes to recognize spectrum opportunities and transmits data based on the licensed users’ arrival prediction on the channel. It estimates the number of active cognitive wireless sensor nodes and it also adjusts the sleep cycle in order to conserve energy. The proposed protocol does not need a dedicated common control channel to negotiate for the data channels. We evaluate delay, energy consumption, and goodput, which are the three important qualities of service parameters through simulation. The simulation results show that the proposed approach achieves higher energy conservation with a small cost of delay and adequate aggregated goodput.