A Tool for Developing Collaborative Sensing and Cognitive MAC Layer Solutions for 5G in Rural Areas

The 5G mobile networks will increase the amount of available spectrum by using new licensed and unlicensed bands. However, most of the newly allocated bandwidth is restricted to higher frequencies, that provides smaller coverage. Lower frequencies, that provide higher ranges, are mostly occupied by either radio or television channels. With the move to digital television, some analog TV channels are available in specific regions, opening the possibility of frequency reuse by third parties. Geolocation databases and collaborative sensing techniques are used to locate and use the available TV Whitespaces (TVWS) for mobile transmission. This paper presents the proposal of a cognitive cycle in the ns-3 simulator (LENA/LTE), which includes collaborative sensing and a cognitive radio resource scheduler. The simulations were done considering a rural area and the results show that the implementation may be useful for further research in developing new solutions for the 5G Cognitive MAC Layer.