Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

In a world of rapid growth of commercial wireless services, accommodating the explosive demand for spectrum access, efficiency and reliability becomes increasingly technically challenging. Furthermore, implementation of advanced information services for military applications in a crowded electromagnetic spectrum is a challenging task for communication engineers. A solution is provided by flexible cognitive and intelligent radios, capable of sensing and adapting to the environment. With software defined radio (SDR) products today, cognitive and intelligent radio is just the next step, and not a leap, in radio development. The objective of this research program is to develop a conceptual framework and a set of efficient algorithms for cognitive and intelligent radio systems, with both commercial and military applications. Dynamic spectrum sensing, opportunity sharing, radio access with high spectral efficiency, and blind signal recognition, which includes blind separation of multiple received signals, blind parameter estimation and equalization, and blind modulation classification, are topics proposed to be investigated. This work is crucial to cope with the scarce electromagnetic spectrum resource in commercial and military radio communications, and vital for decision involving electronic warfare in military operations. Results of this research will facilitate the understanding of methodologies and techniques which can be used to solve challenging open research problems pertaining to the cognitive and intelligent radio systems. The suite of algorithms devised in this research will serve as an engine for SDR to be used in such systems. The proposed research falls in the area of intelligent systems technologies for advanced telecommunications and security sectors, which, according to the federal Department of Industry, represents a priority direction of R&D investment in Canada.