John Ian Ferrell

KNOWS: Cognitive Radio Networks Over White Spaces

FCC has proposed to allow unlicensed operations in the TV broadcast bands. This portion of the spectrum has several desirable properties for more robust data communication as compared to the ISM bands. However, there are a number of challenges in efficiently using the TV bands. For example, the available spectrum is fragmented, and its availability may vary over time. In this paper, we present a cognitive radio system, called KNOWS, to address these challenges. We present the design of our prototype, which includes a new hardware platform and a spectrum-aware Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol. We have implemented the MAC protocol in QualNet, and our results show that in most scenarios KNOWS increases the throughput by more than 200% when compared to an IEEE 802.11 based system.

A Hardware Platform for Utilizing TV Bands With a Wi-Fi Radio

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently exploring the use of TV bands for unlicensed communication. This step has sparked significant interest in the research and corporate community as it opens up new possibilities for high speed and long range wireless communication. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a complete system that can detect the presence of TV signals, and perform high-speed data communication in an available TV band without interfering with neighboring TV bands. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first known system with all the above capabilities.