Proposal of dynamic subcarrier selection technique using CSMA/CA for cognitive wireless mesh networks

In wireless mesh networks using unlicensed radio frequency band, how to adaptively and efficiently allocate spectrum among multiple wireless nodes according to the surrounding environment is an important issue. Cognitive radio that includes functionalities of radio environmental awareness and intelligent radio resource management in an opportunistic way is regarded as the great candidate to enable the efficient utilization of radio resource. In order to fully exploit radio resources and enhance spectrum efficiency based on cognitive radio to wireless mesh networks, this paper proposes dynamic subcarrier selection technique and CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance) based MAC layer protocol for wireless mesh networks. In the proposed technique, based on the detection of available spot-wise subcarriers using the subcarrier-level carrier sense and the estimation of channel conditions, data packet is transmitted using unused discrete subcarriers having good channel conditions. Numerical results confirm that the proposed dynamic subcarrier selection technique is effective in utilizing radio resources and enhance spectrum efficiency. Moreover, because multiple nodes can get the transmission opportunity at the same time, the degradation in transmission performance due to the contention between multiple nodes can be solved.