Abstract
With the constant advances in wireless technology and the constant increase of mobile users and applications, radio spectrum has become a very scarce resource. Cognitive Radio (CR) has emerged as a viable way to deal with our scares, inefficient use of our radio spectrum by utilizing unused spectrum holes or white space as it is referred to.
Using Software Defined Radio (SDR) we are able to evaluate the adaptive features and the unique properties of CRs. Most of the research that has been done on CR protocols has been based on analytical assessments and simulations. By prototyping these protocols, we will be able to validate the results achieved in simulations by comparing it to results achieved in an actual prototyped environment.
In this paper we code and compare two CR specific Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols through simulations using a CR specific chosen simulator. We then prototype the two protocols using the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) and an SDR specific software development toolkit. Lastly, we then compare the results obtained from the simulations and SDR prototyping to see how close the simulated results come to an actual prototyped implementation.
M.Ing.