Network management issues in military cognitive radio networks

Cognitive Radio (CR) was designed to support flexible spectrum usage by adding spectrum sensing facilities and decision making logic to the radio devices. Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) is an extension of the CR concept to enable holistic end-to-end optimization of the network operation and services. We discuss CRN management issues in the context of military and tactical operation environments, where the key feature is the temporal nature of the network installations. Our special interest is in the wireless ad hoc network solutions. The network lifetime may extend from just hours to several days. The limited lifetime of the networks makes it both possible and necessary to define the management functionalities with respect to different mission phases. Traditional FCAPS (Fault, Configuration, Administration, Performance, and Security) functions and their required actions are therefore detailed to some level at each operational phase (before, during and after mission). We will emerge the idea that, as the cognitive and autonomous technologies will be developed to operate communication networks and become trustworthy enough to be applied also in tactical context, they will most likely first be applied in the during mission phase. Of course, this phase is also the most critical in the sense that it is here that lives are at stake. To answer this critical issue, the policy management must be seen as an equally critical functionality. It is necessary to develop the interconnection between mission goals and defined policies so that the Cognitive Network Engine (CNE) determining the operational parameters of the network, in all situations provides a reliable and failsafe communication solution to be utilized.