Scheduling Scheme for Cognitive Radio Networks with Imperfect Channel Knowledge

Cognitive radio is a promising technique for efficient spectrum utilization in wireless systems. In this paper, we consider an underlay cognitive radio system where a large number of secondary users (SUs) can share the spectrum with a primary user (PU). We assume that M antennas are used at the cognitive base station (CBS) and the CBS does not have the full channel state information (CSI) from secondary users. We propose to study the problem of secondary users scheduling under the assumption of imperfect CSI of the interference channel between the CBS and the primary receiver. In order to minimize the interference to the PU, we propose to generate orthogonal beams to the estimate of the channel between the CBS and the PU. Then, to reduce the amount of required feedback, we propose a scheduling algorithm based on opportunistic beamforming. To further reduce the amount of feedback, a threshold is applied to the signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) feedback. For the proposed scheme, we develop a statistical analysis for the interference caused to the PU as well as the throughput of the secondary system.