CAREER: SpecMax: Spectrum Trading and Harvesting Designs for Multi-Hop Communications in Cognitive Radio Networks

认知无线电(CR)是一种革命性的范式，它释放频谱，使二次用户(SU)能够机会性地访问未得到充分利用的频谱。由于频谱的巨大经济价值，认知无线电技术也促进了认知无线电网络(CRN)中的许多频谱交易设计。遗憾的是，大多数现有的设计都依赖于SU手持设备具有强大的CR能力的前提，这可能不容易嵌入SU设备的轻量级小尺寸无线电中。此外，现有的设计主要是针对单跳通信的基于用户的频谱交易，对多跳端到端服务的提供缺乏深入的了解。此外，选择最佳频段的流行思想使得次要服务容易由于主用户的返回而中断。最后，为了方便频谱交易，应提供更准确的频谱可用信息。在此背景下，本课题旨在构建一个研究多跳CRN中频谱交易的框架，包括：(1)设计一种新的CRN体系结构以方便无CR能力的SU接入；(2)扩展多跳CR通信的频谱交易；(3)在频谱不确定的情况下获取频谱；(4)构建细粒度的移动频谱地图。本项目的研究成果可以促进频谱交易设计水平的提高，丰富网络设计和网络经济学的科学知识。因此，该项目对CRN的成功至关重要，因为CRN可以为创造就业、提高生产率和经济增长提供巨大机会。该项目还涉及研究出版物/讲座、课程开发、招募少数族裔学生、培训和指导，以及与K-12学生的接触。

Cognitive radio (CR) is a revolutionary paradigm that releases spectrum and enables secondary users (SUs) to opportunistically access under-utilized spectrum. Due to the great economic value of spectrum, CR technology has also promoted many spectrum-trading designs in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). Unfortunately, most existing designs rely on the premise that the SUs hand-held devices have powerful CR capability, which may not be easily embedded into lightweight small-sized radios of SUs' devices. Besides, existing designs mainly focus on per-user based spectrum trading for single-hop communications, and lack deep understanding of multi-hop end-to-end service provision. Moreover, the prevalent idea of choosing the best band makes secondary services vulnerable to interruption due to the returns of primary users. Finally, to facilitate spectrum trading, more accurate information of spectrum availability should be provided. Motivated by these facts, this project aims to construct a framework to investigate the spectrum trading in multi-hop CRNs, which includes the study of (1) designing a novel CRN architecture to facilitate the accessing of SUs without CR capability, (2) extending spectrum trading for multi-hop CR communications, (3) harvesting spectrum under spectrum uncertainty, and (4) constructing a fine-grained mobile spectrum map. The results of this project can advance the state of the art in spectrum trading designs and enrich the scientific knowledge of network designs and network economics. The project is thus crucial to the success of CRNs, which can provide great opportunities for job creation, greater productivity, and economic growth. This project also involves research publications/talks, curriculum development, minority student recruitment, training and mentoring, and outreach to K-12 students.