Architectures and Protocols for Next Generation Cognitive Networking.

In the late 1990s the introduction of cognitive radios paved the way for physical layer capabilities in an entirely new dimension, namely cognition. Since then, significant amount of research has gone into software defined radios and cognitive radio systems. Recent innovations in physical layers for network interface cards and base station front-ends for cellular systems utilize the benefits of cognitive radio systems. While cognitive radio systems are well researched, less-studied cognitive networking appears to have significant potential to be part of next generation wireless systems. In this chapter, we present some benefits of cognitive wireless networks, different architectural paradigms for such systems, and a new architecture specifi- cally designed for cognitive wireless networks. This chapter also presents the details of the CogNet AP, a cognitive network access point, as an early implementation of autonomous cognitive networking systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]