White Paper: Radio y Redes Cognitivas

Traditionally, two different policies to access the radio spectrum have coexisted: licensed regulation, whereby the rights to use specific spectral bands are granted in exclusivity to an individual operator; or unlicensed regulation, according to which certain spectral bands are declared open for free use by any operator or individual following specific rules. While these paradigms have allowed the wireless communications sector to blossom in the past, in recent years they have evidenced shortcomings and given signs of exhaustion. For instance, it is quite usual to encounter fully overloaded mobile communication systems coexisting with unused contiguous spectral bands. This clearly advocates for a more flexible and dynamic allocation of the spectrum resources which can only be achieved with the advent of the so-called cognitive radios and networks. This whitepaper provides an accurate description of priority research activities and open challenges related to the different functionalities of cognitive radios and networks. First, we outline the main open problems related to the theoretical characterization of cognitive radios, spectrum sensing techniques as well as the optimization of physical layer functionalities in these networks. Second, we provide a description of the main research challenges that arise from a system point of view: MAC protocol optimization, traffic modelling, RRM strategies, routing paradigms or security issues. Next, we point out other problems related to the practical hardware implementation of cognitive radios, giving especial emphasis to sensing capabilities, reconfigurability and cognitive control and management. Finally, we succinctly report on a number of current activities related to the standardization of cognitive radio systems.