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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2626721, IEEE Access

On-demand Hybrid Routing for Cognitive Radio


Ad-Hoc Network
Mahdi Zareei , Ehab Mahmoud Mohamed , Mohammad Hossein Anisi , Cesar Vargas Rosales
Kazuya Tsukamoto and Muhammad Khurram Khank
Electronic Systems Engineering Department, Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT),

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia


Electrical Engineering Department, Aswan University, Aswan, Egypt
Department of Computer System and Technology, Faculty Of Computer Science and Information Technology,

University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia


School of Engineering and Sciences, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Department of Computer Science and Electronics, Kyushu Institute of Technology,

Iizuka, Fukuoka, Japan 820-8502


k Center of Excellence in Information Assurance (CoEIA), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
m.zareei@ieee.org, ehab mahmoud@aswu.edu.eg, anisi@um.edu.my, cvargas@itesm.mx,
tsukamoto@cse.kyutech.ac.jp,k mkhurram@ksu.edu.sa

AbstractA novel on-demand cluster-based hybrid routing (SUs), to use licensed bands without interfering the licensed
protocol for cognitive radio ad hoc network with non-uniform users, known as primary users (PUs) [5].
node distribution is proposed in this paper. At first, a novel Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) can be categorized as
spectrum-aware clustering mechanism is introduced. The pro-
posed clustering mechanism divides node into clusters based infrastructure-based CRN and cognitive radio ad hoc networks
on three values: spectrum availability, power level of node and (CRAHNs) [5]. The former CRN has a central network entity
node stability. Therefore, clusters are formed with the highest to maintain the network such as base-stations (BS) in cellular
stability to avoid frequent reclustering. Later, a routing algorithm networks. Instead, the latter does not have any infrastructure
is introduced to minimize the delay while achieving acceptable backbone and each CR user is able to communicate with other
delivery ratio. In this paper, routing is defined as a multi-objective
optimization problem to combine different individual routing CR users via ad hoc connections, [6]. Most of the work in the
metrics to form a global metric. Simulation results show that our field of CRAHN has focused on channel scarcity problem at
proposed routing algorithm can guarantee a lower delay and a the lower layer (PHY, MAC), while routing in CRAHN is
higher packet delivery ratio than conventional routing protocols largely unexplored. Routing in CRAHN is a very important
for cognitive radio ad hoc networks. Due to our routing design task having a great effect on the overall performance of the
specification, such as power consideration and low delay, it can
be suitable to be adopted for IoT applications. network. Routing in CRAHN differs from routing in traditional
ad hoc networks as it has to adapt to dynamic changes of
spectrum due to stochastic behavior of PU and SU. Moreover,
I. I NTRODUCTION routing protocols in CRAHN must deal with heterogeneity of
Due to the expansion of wireless communications, it is resources (available channels and available energy).
almost impossible to cope with allocation of spectrum as it In this paper, we design an efficient clustering mechanism,
is a limited and finite resource. Therefore, it is vital to ensure and on top of that, we propose a robust routing algorithm
the best usage of this limited resource to meet the recent to ensure a certain level of QoS in the network. A novel
radio frequency demand. The traditional spectrum allocation spectrum-aware clustering algorithm is introduced that jointly
methods that are authorized by different regulators are not considers the available spectrum and the power level of the
intelligently handled. It is noticed that the licensed spectrum nodes to form the clusters. The proposed clustering algorithm
remains unoccupied most of the time, [1], where the regulatory makes the network more scalable to PUs activities and
body is unable to allocate the frequency for upcoming new node mobility. The proposed on-demand cluster-based hybrid
wireless devices, [2]. This provisional unused segment in the routing (OCHR), is a hybrid protocol that uses a proactive
licensed spectrum are known as spectrum holes, [3]. Spectrum method for intra-cluster routing and a reactive method for
hole is define as the frequency band that has been allocated to a inter-cluster routing. The path selection in OCHR protocol
licensed user but it is unutilized at a particular time or location. is defined as a multi-objective optimization problem, where
To utilize these unoccupied band, to resolve the spectrum OCHR selects the path with the highest rate and lowest delay.
scarcity for new wireless application and to make spectrum This can be achieved by selecting the route with the lowest
allocation more dynamic, cognitive radio (CR) technology is node density. Using numerical simulations, it is found that
proposed, [4]. This intelligent technology introduces oppor- OCHR outperforms other existing protocols by maintaining
tunistic access of unlicensed users, known as secondary users lesser delay with a higher delivery ratio.

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The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section


II discusses the related work in CRAHN routing protocols.
The system model is introduced in Section III. Section IV
illustrates the proposed spectrum-aware cluster formation, and
the routing protocol is presented in Section V. Section VI dis-
cusses the performance evaluation and section VII concludes
the paper.

II. R ELATED W ORK


A modified version of LEACH protocol for cognitive radio
sensor network named as cognitive LEACH (CogLEACH)
is presented in [7]. Unlike LEACH, CogLEACH considers
number of vacant channels to measure the weight for each
node. Later this weight is used to determine the probability
for any node to be the cluster head (CH). A routing protocol
for event-driven clustering technique in cognitive radio sensor
networks is presented in [8]. In this protocol, distance between
the cognitive sensor nodes and the event occurrence point
at the sink is considered to determine the potential CHs.
Stationary CR node Cluster head Primary user Base Station
Later, from the potential CH nodes, CHs are selected based
on nodes degree, the distance to the sink, and the available
channels. To save energy in this approach, nodes go to sleeping Gateway Mobile CR node License band
mode after the data transmission by dismissing the existing
Fig. 1: System architecture.
cluster based network. However, dismissing existing clusters
can result in high packet delay and extra overhead for forming
the clusters again. SEARCH, [9] is a routing protocol that radios deployed in CRN. Each channel has a unique channel
jointly undertakes path and channel selection to avoid regions ID and based on the nodes physical location a given number
of PU activity during route formation. It contains many routing of non-overlapping (orthogonal) channels {Ch|Chi , i = 1, 2, .
techniques effectively to start and sustain routes in multi-hop . ., n} are available. Cognitive radios or SUs coexist with PUs
CRNs. It primarily aims the choosing of the path with low hop and access the channels in an opportunistic manner. Nodes are
count by using the geographic forwarding principles. However, location-aware and to detect and utilize spectrum holes in a
it effectively adapts to SUs mobility as well as to the newly distributed and efficient way, each node is equipped with a
discovered and lost spectrum opportunity. Although, SEARCH single half-duplex cognitive radio transceiver.
finds a stable and efficient route to the destination, but the To model the PUs channel-usage patterns, a discrete-time
routing overhead is considerably high due to flooding the route Markov chain is employed [12], to indicate after each step
request in every available channel. PUs may change their state (i.e., channel usage). SUs use an
Considering energy consumption and dynamic spectrum ac- available channel only when it is not occupied by PUs, similar
cess, a hierarchical routing protocol for cluster-based cognitive to IEEE 802.22 standard. By detecting presence of PU, SU
radio sensor networks named SCEEM is presented in [10], vacates the channel and switch to another spectrum hole. The
[11]. The clustering approach, which is used for this routing overlay spectrum sharing model [13], is used in our network
protocol, considers the highest energy spectrum rank among as simplified interference avoidance model.
the neighbourhood nodes to determine the CH. SCEEM is a
To exchange the control packets, a dedicated control channel
hybrid routing protocol that considers time division multiple
has been considered in the network. Cluster-based architecture
access (TDMA) for intra-cluster communication and carrier
is considered in a way that the nodes forming the cluster
sensing multiple access (CSMA) for inter-cluster communica-
become cluster heads (CHs). CH is responsible for intra-cluster
tions. In the intra-cluster communication, node needs to com-
channel access control as well as inter-cluster communication
pute its energy rank and compares it with all the neighbours.
which is relayed by gateway nodes (GW). CHs use periodic
If any node ranks within the top tree highest rank nodes, this
beacon message to stay synchronized with member nodes. As
node becomes a potential candidate to be the CH. The potential
shown in Fig. 1, GWs are the nodes which are in the edge of
CHs then compete among them to be the CH. The CH then
two adjacent clusters and can listen to both cluster beacons.
assigns individual time-slot for all its member nodes. However,
GW inform CH about its status through control channel.
considering dynamic nature of CRN, using time-slot for intra-
cluster communication can results in higher packet drops due
to PUs activity. IV. C LUSTER FORMATION
Clusters are generated with the adjacent nodes in an ad
III. S YSTEM MODEL hoc topology in the proposed clustering scheme. To divide the
Fig. 1 illustrates the system architecture, in which we network into clusters three different parameters are considered
assume that there are NP U primary users and NSU cognitive namely; node power level, spectrum availability and node cur-

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rent speed. In the architecture, CR nodes exchange their avail- where Wij is a normalization factor that indicates how well
able channels list (ACLi (t)) according to the spectrum sensing node ij is powerful and static in relation to the other nodes
information. In neighbor discovery phase, every node forms its in the cluster. ij , is a positive value that indicates the
own adjacent list Ni where i Z+ {i = 1, 2, 3, . . . , n}. Af- relationship between the node speed (Eij ) and energy (Vij ).
terwards, based on the exchanged information between nodes, Based on the application requirement, and are design
the cluster formation phase starts that is defined as a maximum parameters for prioritising the speed and energy.
vertex biclique problem, [14]. The goal is while ensuring the To avoid a large CHEV value, we select the log of CHEV
availability of sufficient number of idle channels for intra- as a last selection metric of CHs. Hence, the maximization
cluster communication inside each cluster, accommodate more problem in (1) can be written as follows:
nodes inside each cluster to reduce the control overhead.
Channel-grouping schemes are widely used in ognitive radio ij = max (log (Wij Nij Chij )). (5)
ij
literature for improving the fairness and network stability [15].
At first, every CRi node, i = 1, 2, ..., NSU , creates an This maximization problem can be simply solved using a
undirected bipartite graph Gi (Ai , Bi , Ei ) based on neighbor descending sorting algorithm such as [16]. Therefore, a node
list, Ni and ACLi (t). Graph G (V, E) is called bipartite if that has highest log(CHEV) value among others forms the
vertices set
S V can be split into two disjoint sets A and B cluster and becomes the cluster head (CH). For example, when
where A B = V, such that S all edges in E connect vertices node a and d have 4 shared channels, while node d has a
from A to B. Here, Ai = CRi Ni , and Bi = Ci where, Ci is higher number of neighbors compared to node a under the
the ACLi (t) of CRi . An edge (x, y) exists between vertices x similar power and dynamicity condition, node d will be the
Ai and y Bi if y Ci , i.e., channel y is in the available CH. If the log(CHEV) value of a node CRi is smaller than
channels of CRi . one of its neighbors, CRi joins the neighbour with highest
To select an optimal CHs among all the nodes, a parameter log(CHEV) value, as cluster member (CM). CHs prioritize
named a cluster head election value (CHEV) is defined. In other cluster members based on their value for the reserved
this paper, selection of a CH is formulated as a maximization cluster head (RCH) selection. Once the clusters are formed,
problem, which is defined as follows: The RCH takes over CH responsibilities if current CH moves
out or die, which reduces the possibility of re-clustering. The
ij = max (CHEV ij ), 1 ij CM j , (1) node with the higher log(CHEV) becomes the RCH for the
ij
cluster.

CHEV ij N ij Chij , (2)


V. ROUTING
where ij is defined as node i in cluster j, Nij is the total number By using the clustering mechanism, the proposed routing
of neighbors of node i in cluster j, CM j is the total number protocol uses both a proactive and a reactive routing in an
of cluster member in cluster j and Chij is the total number of adjustable hybrid manner. Each CH is aware of the topology of
common channels that node i has in cluster j. the cluster that it belongs to. CH periodically disseminate this
To choose the node with the highest number of neighbors information inside the cluster, thus nodes create routing tables
and the highest number of common channels as a cluster head of their local neighbors. Therefore, the packet transmission
CHEV value is defined as given in (1) and (2). This makes inside each cluster occurs in a proactive manner. However,
the cluster more robust to changes in the network such as no matter how big is the network size, nodes do not require
PU appearance and spectrum mobility. Moreover, it protects to know the topology of the whole network and the updates
the network from dividing the nodes into several small size are propagated only locally inside each cluster. Meanwhile,
clusters, which can cause heavy control overhead. routing between clusters happens in a reactive manner using
Since cluster head is responsible for cluster stability, to CHs and gateways.
have a more stable clusters, it is better to choose the most Source node transmits the route request (RReq) into its
resourceful node among others as a cluster head. Also, to avoid cluster head. If the destination node is in the same cluster
frequent reclustering in a dynamic network due to cluster head then cluster head informs the source node about the route to
mobility, it is better to choose the nodes having relatively the destination. Otherwise, CH broadcasts the route request
lower speed and movement as cluster heads. This way we (CHRReq) to the adjacent clusters using the GW nodes. Each
can ensure cluster heads are not highly mobile and clusters CH that receives the CHRReq packet, it checks that whether
are more stable. By considering these two important points, the destination node is within its cluster members or not. If a
the proportionally constant of the relationship given in (2) is CH finds the destination node is within its members, it replies
defined as follows: the CHRReq by CHRRep. If it does not find the destination
among its members, it adds its id, hop-count, achievable data
CHEV ij = Wij N ij Chij , (3) rate, density, and cluster channel to the packet and forwards
the message to the adjacent clusters.
Since in the proposed routing mechanism, routing queries
i Eij propagate only among the CHs, thus it relatively uses small
Wij = P j where ij =
, , R+ , (4)
ij ij V ij number of query messages.

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A. Path optimization
1
Minimizing the hop-count is one the major consideration F (r) = (DT (r), , HT (r)). (11)
RT (r)
in most of the routing protocols in different areas of wireless
network [17]. However, considering that improvement of dif- To solve the above multi-objective optimization, we use
ferent routing metrics may result in different routing paths, it very common method called weighted sum method [18] for
is necessary to combine different individual routing metrics its simplicity.
to form a global metric to achieve a performance trade-off
n
among different routing metrics. In this paper, as we consider X
M (r) = min wi fi (r), (12)
to improve multiple factors in routing such as delay, data
i=1
rate and hop-count, path optimization is defined as a multi-
objective optimization as follows: where M (r) corresponds to the global objective function F
and r defines the chosen route. n is the number of objective
n
P
min F (x) = (f1 (x) , f2 (x) , ..., fn (x))
T functions and wi > 0, 1 i n. wi = 1 is a weight vector
x (6) i=1
s.t. n 2, fi (x) R+ , defined by each node and reflects the relative importance of
that particular object.
where n is the number of objective functions, F (x) is a vector In CRAHN, the dynamically varying nature of PUs activity
of objective functions fi (x). It is needed to be noted that there may increase the round trip time (RTT). Therefore, RTT
is no single global solution to multi-objective optimization estimation for link level and end-to-end may show abrupt
problems and it is more of a concept than a definition. variation. Thus, this sudden variation may prevent the delay-
Consider the following definitions: based routing protocol to operate correctly. However, higher
(i, j) E = Link from node i to node j; i, j V . data rate assures faster transmission, where values of dqij and
dtij R+ = Transmission delay of link (i, j). dtij are low. Meanwhile, chances of collision are increased in
dbij R+ = Backoff delay of link (i, j). a highly dense network, where increased chance for collision
dqij R+ = Queueing delay of link (i, j). increases dqij . This is because the packet should remain in the
dsij R+ = Switching delay of link (i, j). queue longer till the node finds an available free channel to
R(t)ij R+ = Achievable data rate of link (i, j) at transmit. Also it increases the dbij , as nodes have to perform
time t. backoff procedure more often due to collisions. Therefore, dqij
PT H (s, d) = Path connecting source s to and dbij have direct relationship with network density.
destination d.
dqij , dbij ,
|PT H (s, d)| R+ = Cardinality of PT H (s, d).
d(PT H (s, d)) = Delay of the path PT H (s, d), given 1
dqij , dtij .
by: RT (r)
According to [19], the 1-hop network density is given by:
X
d(PT H (s, d)) = (dtij + dbij + dqij + dsij ). 2
(i,j)PT H (s,d)
N (tr)
(r) = , (13)
(7) A
Using the above definitions, routing for CRAHN may be where N is the total number of nodes in the network, tr is
defined as a multi-objective optimization that finds the route r the transmission range of each node and A is the size of the
from all available routes while simultaneously minimizing the area where the network is deployed.
following objective functions namely: total end-to-end delay However, in this paper, we are trying to choose a route
DT (r), hop count HT (r) and at the meantime maximizing the that passes through the lower dense area as we consider non-
data rate RT (r): uniform distribution. Therefore, we differentiate the density
1- Total end-to-end delay of a route r: in different area of the network and we consider density on
any areas as the number of neighbors that a node has. Higher
DT (r) = d(PT H (s, d)). (8) number of neighbors means higher node density in that area.
2- Hop count between source to destination in route r: Since all traffic flows through CHs, we only consider node
densities around CHs where the number of neighbors for each
CH represents node density . Therefore, total node density
HT (r) = |PT H (s, d)| 1. (9)
in each route r is calculated as follows:
3- Achievable data rate of a route r over HT (r) hop:
2
X NkCM (trk )
C
T (r) = . (14)
1 X A
RT (r) = R(t)ij . (10) kPT H (s,d)
HT (r)
(i,j)PT H (s,d)
where N CM is defined as the number of cluster member.
Therefore, the cost function of a path can be expressed by Data rate of each node is calculated similarly to [20].
the following equation: Defining Rs (t) as the achievable data rate while PU correctly

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detected as idle without any false alarm, and Rf (t) as achiev-


able data rate during the falsely sensed idle channel, we have:
30
T Ts To Ss
Rs (t) = (Pof f Pf ) log2 (1 + r ), (15) 25
T n(t)
T Ts To Srs

Hop count
20
Rf (t) = (Pon Pd ) log2 (1 + ), (16)
T n(t) + Srp 15
where Pon and Pof f are defined as the probability of a
channel being in occupied state and channel being in idle state, 10

respectively. Pd is defined as the probability of detection and 5


Pf as the probability of false alarm. T is the SU maximum 2
1.8
frame period, while Ts is defined as the sensing period and 0.5
Ach 1.6
and To is defined as overhead of negotiating the traffic channel iev 0.4
abl 1.4
ed 0.3 ity
ata dens
between the pair of transmitter and receiver. is defined as rate 1.2
1
0.2
otal
node
1 0.01 T
traffic channel bandwidth and SrS is the received signal power
p
of PU by SU during spectrum detection. Sr is the PU signal Fig. 2: Result of M (r) optimization using DMA approach.
power, and n(t) is the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN).
Having (15) and (16), considering a network having C
channels and M PUs, the achievable data rate of each SU where t is generation index, is the population size that
can be calculated as follows: specifies the resolution in the search space and random()
generates a uniformly distributed random number between 0
random() 2t
R(t) = e 1 T C
on M R (t) + (1 e
T C
1 on M
)Rf (t), (17) and . can be expressed by sin ( F ) , where F is
s
frequency of weight change and |.| gives the absolute value.
where 1 is the scaling factor and on is the time that PUs are Value of F should be large enough so the optimizer can move
ON state. from one stable point to another, and at the same time, it
Therefore, by considering (9), (10), (14), and (17), the should not be too high so that the algorithm would be able to
minimization problem in (12) can be written as follows: converge to a minimum value.
  When the destination received CHRReq packet, it will
C 1 calculate the weight of the different route based on (18) using
M (r) = min 1 (r).T (r) + 2 (r). + 3 (r).HT (r) ,
RT (r) DWA method to find the route which provides the minimum
X3 M (r) that would be the optimal route. Therefore, the node
s.t. i (r) 0 where i (r) = 1. reply the CHRReq by unicasting CHRRep on the optimal
i=1 route to inform the source about which route has to choose to
(18)
transfer the packets.
where 1 (r), 2 (r), and 3 (r) are the assigned weights given
to the density, achievable data rate and hop count, respectively,
VI. P ERFORMANCE EVALUATION
and their value differ from route to route..
In most weighted aggregation based methods one Pareto- The performance of the proposed routing protocol, OCHR,
optimal solution can be achieved by predetermining the is evaluated and compared with other two well known proto-
weights by trial-and-error or by using a priori knowledge. cols, namely SCEEM [9] and SEARCH [23] using computer
However, by the help of evolutionary optimization algorithms simulation. The proposed OCHR is modelled as a routing
a set of Pareto-optimal solutions can be driven with single agent, where IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol is customized to
run. Basically, in evolutionary dynamic weighted approaches, support the CR features. Thus, the modified 802.11cr is used
weights gradually change between 0 and 1, generation by as the CSMA MAC agent in the simulation environment.
2
generation. When the solution reaches a point on the Pareto- The simulation area is set to be 300300 m containing 16
front, it moves along the Pareto-front as the weights change. PUs. PU distribution is assumed to be uniformly distributed,
This method is also known as dynamic weighted aggregation where the network size is 300 nodes that are non-uniformly
(DWA) method. In this paper we solve (18) using the evo- distributed in the network. For the comparative study, nodes
lutionary dynamic weighted aggregation [21], [22]. Thus, we in the network is set to be 100 to have a fair comparison
have to set the weights in a way that they change periodically with the existing methods. The performance of the proposed
and gradually with the process of the evolution. Therefore, the routing protocol in terms of delay and delivery ratio were
weights can be generated as follows: evaluated. Moreover, for the comparative study, parameters
namely, average delay and delivery ratio are considered, where
random() source data rate ranges from 100 Kb/s to 700 Kb/s.
1r (t) = , The result of the optimization in (18) using DWA is

random() provided in Fig. 2, where the distribution of the solution in
2r (t) = (1.0 1r (t)). , the fitness space M (r) is given. As shown in Fig. 2, the X

r r r
3 (t) = 1.0 1 (t) 2 (t), axis represents total node density C T (r), Y axis represents

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2 30 30

1.8 25 25
1
Achievable data rate

Hop count

Hop count
1.6 20 20

1.4 15 15

1.2 10 10

1 5 5
0.01 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.01 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
Total node density Total node density Achievable data rate1
(a) (b) (c)
1 1
Fig. 3: Two dimentional projection of Fig. 2: (a) C
T (r) - RT (r) , (b) C
T (r) - HT (r) and (c) RT (r) - HT (r)

the inverse of the achievable data rate RT1(r) and the Z axis delay increases at a higher rate due excessive overhead traffic.
represents the hop count HT (r). Fig. 2 is used to show the Since the TDMA frame size in SCEEM is 300 kb/s, by
impact of the proposed three objective functions to decide the increasing the data rate over 300 kb/s SCEEM shows sharper
route. In Fig. 2, the blue dots represent the different routes increase in delay.
from a source node to the destination node where the red dots The proposed OCHR protocol is also compared with
are the Pareto-optimal solutions. As the performance of the SEARCH and SCEEM protocols in terms of delivery ratio
algorithm is tough to explain from the 3D Pareto-surface, three (Fig. 4(b)). It is shown that the packet delivery ratio decreases
projections of the Pareto-surface onto the corresponding two- for all the three protocols with increasing data rate. Moreover,
dimensional planes are provided in Fig. 3. In this experiment it is also observed that the OCHR can achieve higher delivery
100 different routes are considered from the source node to the ratio compared to the other two protocols. This is due the
destination node. Then, for each route the achievable data rate, consideration of data rate in the path optimization problem
route density and hop-count are calculated. As explained in the where more priority is given to the route that can guarantee
previous section, the Pareto-optimal route, DWA is used to find higher data rate (bandwidth) while the network is not dense.
the best possible routes among all routes. As it can be seen Hence, the proposed OCHR performs better than SEARCH
from Fig. 3, in some of the Pareto-optimal routes may show and SCEEM in terms of delay and delivery ratio (Fig. 4).
lower data rate compared to others, however it is observed that Figure 5 shows the effect of increasing the number of PUs
these routes provide lower density and lesser hop-count at the in the network on the routing protocols while source data rate
same time. In this simulation we give same priority to all the is fixed to 100 kb/s. Fig. 5(a) shows by having more PUs in the
objective functions to obtain the solution. However, depending network the average delay for all the routing protocols increase
on each specific application, high priority might be given to a due to less availability of channels. SCEEM shows the highest
specific objective. For instance, more priority might be given increase in delay. The reason is because the traffic channel
to data rate when the application requires higher bandwidth or that is negotiated between transmitting and receiving nodes
in a delay sensitive application higher priority would be given might not be available due to PUs activity, thus the nodes
to delay. have to go through the negotiation phase again. SEARCH is
The routing efficiency of the proposed OCHR protocol is performing better than SCEEM due to its main mechanism
investigated for end-to-end delay and delivery ratio. Fig. 4 to avoid PUs active regions. However, when the number of
Shows the results against various source data rate and Fig. PUs increases the packet has to route from inefficient route
5 depict the results against increasing the number of PUs which can cause extra delay. OCHR perform slightly better
in the network. The simulation results are compared with than SEARCH due to its clustering scheme in which several
the SEARCH protocol and the SCEEM protocol. Here, we channel are negotiated inside each cluster, thus cluster member
consider the data rate of SU varies from 100 Kb/s to 700 nodes are able to quickly switch between them to avoid extra
Kb/s. Fig. 4(a) presents the comparisons in terms of average delay. However, the inter-cluster routing would impose extra
delay. As it can be seen OCHR shows a significantly lower delay due to more number of PUs activity.
delay compared with SEARCH, meantime, achieving better The effect of increasing number of PUs on protocols deliv-
performance compared to SCEEM. It is due to the high ery ratio is illustrated in Fig. 5(b). As it could be seen from
efficient clustering approaches that SCEEM and OCHR are Fig. 4(b), SCHEEM and OCHR performing slightly better than
using for the routing. At the same time, OCHR can achieve SEARCH when the source data rate was 100 kb/s. However,
better delay than SCEEM due to its adoptive routing algorithm by increasing number of PUs in the network, delivery ratio
that considers few parameters at the same time. It is also of SCEEM drop sharply due to impact of PUs activity on
observed from Fig. 4(a) that average delay in OCHR increases the availability of traffic channel. Meanwhile, SEARCH and
slightly with the increase of the data rate, while for SEARCH OCHR performing better than SCEEM due to their mechanism

2169-3536 (c) 2016 IEEE. Translations and content mining are permitted for academic research only. Personal use is also permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2626721, IEEE Access

4 1
SCEE
M SCEEM
SEARCH 0.9 SEARCH
3.5
OCHR OCHR
0.8
3
0.7
Average delay (sec)

2.5
0.6

Delivary ratio
2 0.5

0.4
1.5
0.3
1
0.2
0.5
0.1

0 0
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Source data rate (kb/s) Source data rate (kb/s)
(a) (b)
Fig. 4: Impact of increasing data rate on the performance of protocols in terms of average delay(a) and delivery ratio (b).

3 1
SCEEM SCEEM
SEARCH SEARC
H
OCHR 0.9 OCHR
2.5

0.8
2
Average delay (sec)

Delivary ratio

0.7
1.5
0.6

1
0.5

0.5
0.4

0
16 20 24 28 32 36 40 16 20 24 28 32 36 40
Number of PUs Number of PUs
(a) (b)
Fig. 5: Impact of increasing number of PUs on the performance of protocols in terms of average delay(a) and delivery ratio
(b).

to deal with the PUs activity. As it discussed in Fig. 5(a), intra- a cluster, priority on number of neighbors and bandwidth
cluster routing in OCHR would effect less by increasing the have been given. The proposed OCHR was compared with
number of PUs. However, the impact of increasing the PUs in the other existing routing protocols for CR ad hoc networks
the network would affect the inter-cluster routing and reduce using numerical simulations. It is found that the proposed
the delivery ratio. OCHR outperforms other existing protocols by maintaining
lower delay with higher delivery ratio. In this work, SUs are
VII. C ONCLUSION considered to be fixed and the chosen path is assumed to
be available for complete data transmission. Considering SUs
This paper presented a novel on-demand hybrid routing
mobility and dynamic resource allocation along the path are
protocol for spectrum aware cluster-based network. The novel
remained as our future work.
clustering mechanism presented in this paper considers spec-
trum availability, power level of node and node stability
when forming the clusters. Re-clustering was minimized by ACKNOWLEDGMENT
constructing clusters with the highest stability cluster-heads.
The proposed routing protocol, OCHR, is a hybrid protocol This work is partially supported by National Telecom
that uses a proactive method for intra-cluster routing and a Regulatory Authority (NTRA) Egypt under project title
reactive method for inter-cluster routing. The OCHR routing LTE/WiFi/WiGig internetworking for future 5G cellular net-
protocol was defined as a multi-objective optimization prob- works. We also extend our sincere appreciation to the Dean-
lem, where different individual routing metrics are considered ship of Scientific Research at King Saud University for funding
to form a global metric. To provide the routing weight for this Prolific Research Group (PRG-1436-16).

2169-3536 (c) 2016 IEEE. Translations and content mining are permitted for academic research only. Personal use is also permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2626721, IEEE Access

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