Energy-Efficient GCSA Medium Access Protocol for Infrastructure-Based Cognitive Radio Networks

The major challenge encountered by battery-driven wireless local area networking devices is to conserve their energy for prolonged operation. This paper presents an energy-efficient medium access mechanism called group control slot allocation (GCSA) protocol for cognitive radio (CR) networks. GCSA utilizes the group priority allocation algorithm to allocate stations (STAs) into groups; subsequently STAs that have traffic buffered in an access point are assigned to a higher priority group. A management frame, namely group monitoring pointer, optimizes the sleep-awake cycle of the STAs by allocating transmission opportunities to groups based on their priority. GCSA employs publisher-subscriber and point-to-point messaging models for communication between the base station and STAs, respectively. Performance analysis of GCSA demonstrates that increasing the number of STAs which enter into sleep mode augments the percentage of energy saved. The overall system-level results show that energy saved is around 20% higher for GCSA than the IEEE 802.11e standard hybrid coordination function power-saving mode. Since GCSA benefits from history-assisted-led spectrum sensing, the paper also presents the relationship of the local storage of CRs with respect to history and suggests a hybrid approach as best option to keep a balance between the sensed data and its sharing with analytical engine database for history enrichment leading toward improved energy efficiency.