Proof-of-Concept: Spectrum and Energy Efficient Multi-User CR Network via Vacancy and Quality based Channel Selection

This demonstration presents a proof-of-concept for oppor-tunistic spectrum access in the decentralized network consisting of multiple secondary users (SUs). SUs need to independently characterize these frequency bands based on estimated primary user (PU) occupancy statistics and channel quality and avoid collision with other SUs. The proposed , quality of service-upper confidence bound (QoS-UCB) policy, as well as existing state-of-the-art multi-armed bandit (MAB) learning approaches have been implemented on the proposed testbed consisting of USRPs from Ettus Research, GNU radio companion for PUs and Mat-lab/Simulink for SUs. The experimental results show that the proposed QoS-UCB policy outperforms existing learning approaches in terms of SU throughput, number of SU collisions and the number of frequency band switchings making SU terminals energy efficient.