A Tri-Band Full-Duplex Cognitive Radio Transceiver for Tactical Communications

RF spectrum represents a limited natural resource. The increasing numbers of wireless devices demand more and more spectrum for diverse future applications and services. CR is explored as a technological solution to the current paradigm of spectrum scarcity by opportunistically sharing the spectrum with licensed users. FD operation further enhances the performance of CR with higher throughput and optimized sensing time. Tactical radios are traditionally operated in the licensed frequency bands. To comply with the soaring demands, alternative means are explored to share the spectrum among tactical users. In this article, an FD-CR integrated with tri-band operation and dynamic spectrum shaping is proposed for tactical communications. The proposed radio is implemented in the Zynq SDR platform. The performance results reveal that the FD-CR offers higher throughput, higher probability of detection (Pd > 0.9), and optimized sensing time, which empowers the system to be ideally suitable for tactical communication networks.