A Novel Interference Safety Margin for Cognitive Radio MANET using Smart Antennas

A new interference estimation technique is proposed for the deployment of a smart-antenna-equipped MANET (Mobile Ad hoc NETwork), acting as a secondary network, sharing the same scarce frequency band as many legacy fixed antennas (primary network) in the same area. With the help of only a coarse probabilistic estimate of each primary antenna location, the MANET can voluntarily overestimate the aggregate interference it causes to the primary network. The latter indeed imposes an aggregate interference safety margin for the former to respect, following a chosen minimum probability. By means of simulations prior to deployment, the MANET can thus assess the impact of its future spectrum sharing with the primary network, and take countermeasures accordingly. The proposed technique offers great potential, for the deployment of a cognitive MANET, since advances in millimeter radio waves technologies will soon make smart antennas easily portable in size.