Non-intrusive cognitive radio networks based on smart antenna technology

Cognitive radio has recently been identified as a potential relief to spectrum scarcity by improving temporal spectral efficiency. We investigate a flexible non-intrusive cognitive radio network based on smart antenna technologies. The proposed scheme exploits transmit beamforming to enable better spectral sharing between primary users and cognitive (secondary) users. As proposed, the cognitive transmitter equipped with antenna array forms transmit beamforming to keep the interference to primary receiver below a given threshold. By also adopting smart antennas at primary transmitters, we can significantly boost the successful transmission probability of cognitive users; thereby improving the spectrum utilization efficiency of the wireless communication networks.