Channel Selection Scheme for Cooperative Routing Protocols in Cognitive Radio Networks

Abstract: Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) propose a smart solution for spectrum usage inefficiency. Routing protocols for CRNs follow different criteria to choose the best route to the destination and to avoid the interference with primary users. Some protocols use cooperative communication techniques to achieve the full coexistence between secondary users (SUs) and primary users (PUs). Although using such cross-layer techniques have a great impact on the quality of the chosen routes, the existing work do not choose the best channel to send the data over. Thus, the available spectrum is not utilized efficiently. In this work, we propose CSCR, a channel selection scheme for cooperation-based routing protocols in CRNs. The proposed scheme increases the spectrum utilization through integrating the channels selection in the route discovery phase of the cooperation-based routing protocols. The best channels, that are less congested with primary users and that lead to minimum switching overhead, are chosen while constructing the cooperative group. Evaluating CSCR via NS2 simulations shows that it outperforms its counterparts in terms of goodput, end-to-end delay, and packet delivery ratio. The proposed scheme can enhance the network goodput, in some cases, by more than 150%, as compared to other related protocols.