Performance Analysis of a CSMA/CA based MAC

Protocol for Cognitive Radio Networks

Tae Ok Kim1 , Attahiru S. Alfa2 , and Bong Dae Choi1
of Mathematics and Telecommunication Mathematics Research Center, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
2 Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
E-mail: 1 {violetgl, queue}@korea.ac.kr, 2 alfa@ee.umanitoba.ca

1 Dept.

Abstract We develop an analytical model to investigate the

performance of a decentralized MAC protocol based on IEEE
802.11 DCF for cognitive radio networks with single spectrum
band. Our analysis provides the throughput obtained by secondary users and the interference ratio perceived by primary
users (SUs). The theoretical approach is verified by comparing its
numerical results to simulation results. Numerical and simulation
results depict the fundamental properties on the performance
under various network parameters such as the number of SUs,
the packet size of SUs and the minimum contention window size.

I. I NTRODUCTION
In order to overcome the spectrum scarcity and improve
the spectrum utilization, a new spectrum allocation paradigm,
called cognitive radio, has been proposed[1]. With cognitive
radio, under-utilized portions of licensed spectrums are open
to opportunistic access by unlicensed users. The main goal
of spectrum access protocols for cognitive radio networks is
to provide more spectrum access opportunities to unlicensed
users (called secondary users, SUs) while limiting the interference perceived by licensed users (called primary users, PUs).
Therefore, we need to analyze the performance characteristics
such as the throughput achieved by SUs and the interference
level perceived by PUs.
We categorize the research work on the performance analysis for cognitive radio networks according to the following
characteristics of the cognitive medium access control(MAC)
protocols: either centralized or decentralized. In centralized
cognitive MAC protocols[2], both the spectrum sensing and
spectrum allocation for SUs are performed by a central
controller. In decentralized MAC protocols[3][5], SUs individually perform spectrum sensing and search spectrum
opportunities. This paper falls under the latter research effort
of cognitive radio performances.
The decentralized cognitive MAC protocols can be further
classified according to whether or not (time) slot structure
commonly applied to PUs and SUs is used. Wang et. al.[3]
and Chong et. al.[4] proposed MAC protocols with commonly
applied slot structure for cognitive radio networks. The slot
structures make it easier to prevent interference perceived by
PUs. However, the accurate slot time synchronization among
PUs and SUs is a difficult technique for practical implementation. For the cognitive radio networks without commonly
applied slot structure, Huang et. al.[5] proposed three similar
decentralized MAC protocols with the structure of sensing,

transmission and vacation. They analyzed the throughput of

SUs with one scheme among the proposed schemes for the
single spectrum band case.
In this paper, we consider a decentralized MAC protocol
without slot structure commonly applied to PUs and SUs for
cognitive radio networks with single spectrum band where
IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function(DCF)[9] is
employed by SUs as cognitive multiple access scheme. DCF is
one of the most popular MAC protocols in currently upcoming
technologies and, what is more, its listen-before-transmission
nature is suitable for cognitive radio networks. Therefore,
we anticipate that the majority of cognitive radio networks
will rely on this technology. We analyze the throughput
achieved by SUs and the interference ratio perceived by PUs.
Our numerical and simulation results depict the fundamental
properties on the performance.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In
Section II, the system model for cognitive radio network is
described. In Section III, the analytical solution is presented.
We present numerical and simulation results in Section III,
and give conclusions in Section V.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
We consider a cognitive radio network on a single spectrum
band assigned to PUs where SUs opportunistically access the
spectrum band. The SUs sense the activity of PUs on the
spectrum band, and access it if the spectrum band is not
occupied by PUs. The activity of PUs on the spectrum band is
modeled as an alternating sequence of ON and OFF periods,
where ON and OFF denote that the spectrum band is occupied
and unoccupied by PUs, respectively. As discussed in [6][8],
we assume that the ON and OFF periods are exponentially
distributed with rate and , respectively.
A decentralized cognitive MAC protocol should have two
basic functions: (i) distributed spectrum sensing to detect the
activity of PUs on the spectrum band, and (ii) distributed and
fair spectrum access of SUs. To meet the requirements, the
proposed MAC protocol for SUs operates as follows.
An SU periodically senses the spectrum band with the
structure of sensing and vacation during ON period. If an SU
finds the spectrum band to be in an ON state for a sensing
time Ts , then the SU senses the spectrum band again after a
fixed vacation time Tv . This process is repeated until it finds
the spectrum band to be in an OFF state.

978-1-4244-3574-6/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

Fig. 1.

Description of system operations

After the SU senses the spectrum band to be in OFF

state in a sensing time, it operates the carrier sense multiple
access/collision avoidance(CSMA/CA) with the binary exponential random backoff mechanism using IEEE 802.11 DCF.
1) The SU chooses a random number (so-called backoff
counter) in the range [0, CW 1] where CW is the
contention window size and is initially set to W0 at the
backoff stage 0.
2) The SU counts down its backoff counter every time
interval which is refer to as a backoff slot if the
spectrum band is sensed to be idle.
3) While the backoff counter is decremented, the spectrum
band might be occupied by either other SUs transmission
or the transition from OFF period to ON period. If once
the spectrum band is sensed to be busy by either one, the
SU freezes its backoff counter for a SU packet transmission time Tp first. Then the SU senses the spectrum band
for a sensing time Ts to check whether the spectrum band
is in ON state or OFF state.
- If the spectrum band is sensed to be idle in the
sensing time, it means that the spectrum band is still
in OFF state and so the SU resumes the backoff
procedure from the frozen backoff counter point.
- If the spectrum band is sensed to be busy in the
sensing time, it means that the status of the spectrum
band is changed to ON period and so the SU repeats
alternating sensing and vacation, and then resumes
the backoff procedure with the frozen backoff counter
when the spectrum band is sensed to be in OFF state.
4) The SU transmits a packet when its backoff counter
reaches zero.
5) If the packet transmission fails, the SU increases its
backoff stage by one, doubles its CW and randomly
chooses a backoff counter. Then SU proceeds the random
backoff again with the newly chosen backoff counter.
6) If the backoff stage excess the maximum backoff stage
R, the SU discards its packet.
Fig. 1 illustrates an example for operations of SUs described
above.

from ON period to OFF period occurs at most once during

a vacation, and (iii) the change of ON-OFF periods occurs at
most once during either the interval between two consecutive
packet transmissions of SUs or the packet transmission time
of SUs, (iv) the cognitive radio network is time-synchronized
among SUs, so that all the SUs sense the spectrum band at
the same epoch as described Fig. 2. By the assumption of
time-synchronization among SUs, all the SUs are considered
to start the backoff mechanism at the same time and so the
competition among SUs at the beginning of OFF periods is
evaluated higher than actual value in our analysis. Thus our
analysis presents a conservative estimate of the performance.
A. Markov Chain for a SUs Behavior
To reflect the details of the CSMA/CA operation in our
analysis, we first model the binary exponential random backoff
mechanism of an arbitrarily tagged SU as a discrete time
Markov chain (DTMC). The DTMC captures the impact of
operations of all the SUs and the state transition of the
spectrum band from OFF to ON period on the tagged SU. The
embedded points are chosen where t and t + 1 correspond to
the two consecutive decrement points of backoff counter for
the tagged SU, and the states of the DTMC are defined by
the values of the backoff stage and backoff counter at each
embedded points.
Fig. 3 illustrates the Markov chain on the operation of the
tagged SU. In the state (i, j), the first component i and the
second component j represent the backoff stage and backoff
counter of the tagged station at time t, respectively. Transitions
among the states occur as follows. When the backoff counter
j is a positive integer at time t, the backoff counter is
decremented by 1 at time t + 1. When the backoff counter

Fig. 2.

Description of system operations in our analysis

III. P ERFORMANCE A NALYSIS

In this section, we investigate the normalized throughput
S of SUs and the interference ratio RI when there are N
SUs in the network. For the sake of analysis, we assume
that (i) SUs always have packets to send, (ii) the change

Fig. 3. One-step transition diagram for the Markov chain describing a SUs
behavior

j reaches 0 and the backoff stage i value is smaller than the

maximum backoff stage R, the SU transmits its packet. In
this case, if other SUs do not transmit simultaneously with
probability 1 pcoll and current OFF period does not finish
during the transmission with probability 1 pintf , then the
transmission is successful and the SU resets its backoff stage
to 0 and randomly chooses its backoff counter in the range of
[0, W0 1] for the next packet transmission. Here, pcoll and
pintf are the probability of collision observed by a transmitted
packet by the tagged SU and the probability of transition from
ON period to OFF period during a packet transmission of
the tagged SU. On the other hand, if at least one other user
transmits its packet or the current OFF period ends during
the transmission, then the transmission fails. Then the SU
increases its backoff stage from i to i + 1 and doubles its
contention window size from Wi to Wi+1 if i is less than the
maximum stage R, and randomly selects its backoff counter
in the range of [0, Wi+1 1]. If the packet transmission at
the maximum backoff stage R fails, the SU discards the
packet and randomly selects it backoff counter in the range
of [0, W0 1] for the next packet. By the balance equations,
the steady-state probabilities i,j of the Markov chain can be
obtained by
i,j =

Wi j
(p )i 0,0
Wi

for all i, j ,

(1)

where p = 1 (1 pcoll ) (1 pintf ). From the normalization

condition, 0,0 is given by (2) in the next page. Since the SU
attempts transmission when the backoff counter reaches zero,
the probability that the tagged SU transmits a packet in a
randomly chosen backoff slot is obtained as
=

R


i,0 .

In Fig. 2, we label the status of the spectrum band as

idle and busy during OFF periods according to whether
or not the spectrum band is occupied by SUs. Let Ai and
Bi , i = 1, 2, , be the events that an OFF period ends (i.e.,
an ON period starts) during the ith idle period and ith busy
period, respectively. Then we can derive the probabilities that
the events Ai and Bi occurs as given in Lemma 3.1. We omit
the proof of Lemma 3.1 due to limitations of space.
From here, we derive the normalized throughput S of SUs
and the interference ratio RI using Lemma 3.1. We define the
normalized throughput S of SUs as the expected long-term
fraction of time in which the packets of SUs are successfully
transmitted. Since the stochastic behavior of the network in
a pair of ON and OFF states generate an alternating renewal
process, the normalized throughput S of SUs can be obtained
as
S=

E(XTX )
=
E(XTX )
E(XON ) + E(XOFF )
+

(5)

Meanwhile, by the memoryless property of exponential distribution, the conditional probability pintf , meaning that this is
the probability of the transition from ON period to OFF period
seen by a transmitted packet by the tagged SU, is given by
(6)

where X OFF is the remaining duration of the current OFF

period at the point a packet of the tagged SU is transmitted.
We substitute (6) into (4). Then equations (4) and (5) represent
a nonlinear system in the two unknowns and pcoll , and so

(9)

where XON , XOFF and XTX are the length of an ON period,

the length of OFF period and the length in which the packet
of SUs are successfully transmitted during an OFF period,
respectively. If an OFF period finishes within the ith idle
period or the ith busy period, there are i 1 multiple packet
transmissions of SUs on the spectrum band. Each transmission
is successful when only one SU attempts packet transmission.
Thus, E(XTX ) is calculated by
E(XTX ) =

By substituting (1) and (2) into (3), is obtained by (4) in

the next page.
We now compute pcoll and pintf as a function of network
parameters. If at least one other user simultaneously transmits
its packet when a packet of the tagged SU is transmitted, the
packet of the tagged SU collides with other transmitted packet.
Therefore, the conditional collision probability pcoll which is
the probability of a collision seen by a transmitted packet by
the tagged SU, is given by

pintf = P(X OFF < Tp ) = 1 eTp

B. Normalized Throughput S of SUs, Interference Ratio RI

(3)

i=0

pcoll = 1 (1 )N 1 .

we simultaneously obtain and pcoll by solving the nonlinear

system using numerical techniques.

 N (1 )N 1
i

1 (1 )N

(i 1)Tp {P(Ai ) + P(Bi )} . (10)

By substituting (10) into (9), we have

S=

 N (1 )N 1
(i 1)Tp {P(Ai ) + P(Bi )} . (11)
+ i 1 (1 )N

We define the interference ratio RI as the expected fraction

of time in which the transmission of PUs (i.e., ON period)
is interrupted by the transmission of SUs. Therefore, the
interference ratio RI is obtained by
RI =

E(XI )
= E(XI )
E(XON )

(12)

where XI is the interrupted interval by SUs during an ON

period as denoted in Fig. 2. If an OFF period ends during idle
periods, SUs can be aware of that and they do not attempt
any transmissions before the spectrum band is sensed to be
in an OFF period again. In this case, PUs do not experience
interference and so the duration XI becomes zero. If an OFF
period finishes during busy periods, PUs suffer interference. In
this case, the cumulative distribution function for the duration

0,0 =

2 (1 2 p ) (1 p )
W0 (1 (2 p )R+1 ) (1 p ) + (1 2 p ) (1 (p )R+1 )

(2)

2 (1 2 p ) (1 (p )R+1 )
W0 (1 (2 p )R+1 ) (1 p ) + (1 2 p ) (1 (p )R+1 )

Lemma 3.1: The probabilities P(Ai ) and P(Bi ), i = 1, 2, , are computed as




(e(Tv +Ts ) e(Tv +Ts ) )

(1 )N (1e )

, if i = 1
1

1(1 ) e

()(1e(Tv +Ts ) )




i1
P(Ai ) =

Ts


e
1e
(1
)
(
)
1 eTs +

{P(Ak ) + P(Bk )} ,
1

1e (1 )N

(4)

if i 2

(7)

k=1

and
P(Bi )


Tp
(1 P(A1 )) , if i = 1

1e


i
i1




=
T
p

1
P(Ak )
P(Bk ) ,
1e
k=1

XI is given by
FXI |Bi (x)  P(XI x|Bi )
= P(X OFF > Tp x|X OFF < Tp )
eTp (ex 1)
=
(0 x Tp ) (13)
1 eTp
due to the memoryless property of exponential distribution.
Thus, E(XI |Bi ) is given by
E(XI |Bi ) =

Tp (1 eTp )
.
(1 eTp )

(14)

Therefore, the expression for the interference ratio RI in (12)

is rewritten as follows:

E(XI |Bi )P(Bi )
RI =
=

i

p (1 ep ) 
P(Bi ) .
(1 ep )
i

(15)

IV. N UMERICAL AND S IMULATION R ESULTS

In this section, we evaluate the throughput achieved by SUs
and interference ratio perceived by PUs as a function of the
packet size of SUs, the minimum contention window size
and the number of SUs. The network parameters used for the
numerical and simulation examples are shown in Table I. In
Fig. 4 Fig. 5, the solid lines represent the numerical results
based on our analysis, and the simulation results are shown
with the marks. It is observed that the simulation results match
well with the numerical results.
Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 4(b) display the normalized throughput
S of SUs and the interference ratio RI versus the packet size
of SUs when the number N of SUs is 3. In both figures,
the minimum contention window size W0 increases from 16
to 128. For all cases, S increases as the packet size of SUs

(8)

if i 2 .

k=1

increases. This is because the overhead caused by random

backoff procedure per unit-sized data transmission decreases
as the packet size of SUs increases. However, S decreases
as W0 increases. Since N is small (N = 3), the contention
to access the spectrum band among SUs is not severe and
so the increment of W0 is unnecessary and just causes an
additional overhead of random backoff procedure. Meanwhile,
RI increases as the packet size of SUs increases and decreases
as W0 increases. This is because the interference interval XI
during an ON period increases as the packet size of SUs
increases, and the portion of idle periods during an OFF period
increases as W0 increases.
In Fig. 5(a) and Fig. 5(b), we investigate the normalized
throughput S of SUs and the interference ratio RI versus the
packet size of SUs when the number N of SUs is 20 under the
same environments with Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 4(b), respectively.
In this case, like as the case of 3 SUs, S and RI both increase
as the packet size increases. However, compared with the case
of 3 SUs, S and RI show different aspects when W0 increases.
In Fig. 5(a), S increases as W0 increases from 16 to 64 and
then slightly decreases (when the packet size of SU<4Kbyte)
PHY rate
mean time
mean time

100Mbps
1

of an ON period
of an OFF period

spectrum sensing time Ts

vacation time Tv
backoff slot length
minimum contention window size W0
maximum backoff stage R
packet size of SUs
TABLE I
N ETWORK PARAMETERS

5msec
15msec
100 sec
500 sec
20 sec
16, 32, 64, 128
4
1 10Kbyte

0.55
0.5

Normalized Throughput of SUs

0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25

W0=16, num
W0=32, num
W0=64, num
W0=128, num
W0=16, sim
W0=32, sim
W0=64, sim
W0=128, sim

0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05

4
5
6
7
Packet Size of SUs (Kbyte)

10

(a) Normalized throughput S of SUs

V. C ONCLUSION

0.07
W0=16, num
W0=32, num
W0=64, num
W0=128, num
W0=16, sim
W0=32, sim
W0=64, sim
W0=128, sim

0.06

Interference Ratio

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

0.01

4
5
6
7
Packet Size of SUs (Kbyte)

10

(b) Interference Ratio RI

Fig. 4.

Performance with respect to packet size of SUs when N = 3.

Normalized Throughput of SUs

0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
W0=16, num
W0=32, num
W0=64, num
W0=128, num
W0=16, sim
W0=32, sim
W0=64, sim
W0=128, sim

0.3
0.25
0.2

4
5
6
7
Packet Size of SUs (Kbyte)

10

0.07

0.06

0.05
Interference Ratio

ACKNOWLEGEMENT

R EFERENCES

(a) Normalized throughput S of SUs

0.04

0.03
W0=16, num
W0=32, num
W0=64, num
W0=128, num
W0=16, sim
W0=32, sim
W0=64, sim
W0=128, sim

0.02

0.01

4
5
6
7
Packet Size of SUs (Kbyte)

10

(b) Interference Ratio RI

Fig. 5.

In this paper, we develop an analytical model to obtain the

throughput obtained by secondary users and the interference
ratio perceived by primary users of a decentralized MAC
protocol using modified IEEE 802.11 DCF for cognitive radio
networks with single spectrum band. We demonstrate high
accuracy of the proposed model by comparing the numerical
results with simulation results. Our future work is to develop
a mathematical framework to obtain the performance of an
IEEE 802.11 DCF based MAC protocol for cognitive radio
networks with multiple spectrum bands. This would be helpful
to produce the guideline for the distributed load balancing
among spectrum bands for the usage of SUs.
This research was supported by the MKE(The Ministry of
Knowledge Economy), Korea, under the ITRC(Information
Technology Research Center) support program supervised
by the NIPA(National IT Industry Promotion Agency). This
paper was written while the second author was visiting Korea
University.

0.55

64 to 128, while S is maximized when W0 is 16 and then

decreases as W0 increases in Fig. 4(a). These results show
that the increment of W0 up to an appropriate value (e.g., 64
when N = 20) is helpful to effectively relief the contention
among SUs when N increases. In Fig. 5(b), RI is decreases
as W0 is increases. However, the difference among other cases
is very small compared with Fig. 4(b). This is because if N is
large, the interval between subsequent packet transmission of
SUs on the spectrum band does not sharply increase although
W0 increases.

Performance with respect to packet size of SUs when N = 20.

or slightly increases (when the packet size of SU>4Kbyte)

according to the packet size of SUs as W0 increases from

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