Cross-Layer Design for TCP Performance Improvement in Cognitive Radio Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology Vol. 59; no. 5; pp. 2485 - 2495
• Main Authors: Changqing Luo, Yu, F Richard, Hong Ji, Leung, Victor C M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.06.2010; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Access methods and protocols, osi model; Access protocols; Applied sciences; Channels; Chromium; Circuit properties; Circuits of signal characteristics conditioning (including delay circuits); Cognitive radio; Cognitive radio (CR) networks; Cross layer design; Design engineering; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electrical engineering. Electrical power engineering; Electrical power engineering; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Estimation error; Exact sciences and technology; Markov processes; Mathematical models; Modulation; Modulation coding; Networks; Operation. Load control. Reliability; Packet switched networks; Power networks and lines; Quality of service; Radio; Radiocommunication specific techniques; Radiocommunications; Studies; TCP (protocol); TCP-IP; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Teleprocessing networks. Isdn; Throughput; transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput; Wireless sensor networks; Performance evaluation; Markov process; Markov decision; Control circuit; Wireless telecommunication; Optimization method; Information rate; Transmission control protocol; Cognitive radio (CR) networks; Thyristor circuits; cross-layer design; Cross-layer approach; Traffic control; transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput; Data link; Modulation coding; Estimation error; Design criterion; Flow rate regulation; Transmission protocol; Teletraffic; Information transmission; Phase shifter; Telecommunication channels; System simulation; Service quality; Radio communication; Software radio
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2010.2041802

In cognitive radio (CR) networks, the end-to-end transmission-control protocol (TCP) performance experienced by secondary users is a very important factor that evaluates the secondary user perceived quality of service (QoS). Most previous works in CR networks ignore the TCP performance. In this paper, we take a cross-layer design approach to jointly consider the spectrum sensing, access decision, physical-layer modulation and coding scheme, and data-link layer frame size in CR networks to maximize the TCP throughput in CR networks. The wireless channel and the primary network usage are modeled as a finite-state Markov process. Due to the miss detection and the estimation error experienced by secondary users, the system state cannot be directly observed. Consequently, we formulate the cross-layer TCP throughput optimization problem as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). Simulation results show that the design parameters in CR networks have a significant impact on the TCP throughput, and the TCP throughput can be substantially improved if the low-layer parameters in CR networks are optimized jointly.