Research on Soft Computing Techniques for Cognitive Radio

Presently, the world of wireless communication is going under some crucial challenges, which attracts the attention of several researchers. Cognitive radio is defined as a multidimensional aware, autonomous radio system that learns from its experiences to reason, plan & decide future actions to meet user needs. Such a highly varied radio environment calls on intelligent management, allocation & usage of scarce resources. Issues like spectrum sensing & allocation, environmental learning i.e., adaptability & capability to learn attracts the attention of several soft computing learning & optimization techniques like neural networks, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithm & swarm intelligence. The cognitive engine behind the radio combines the sensing, learning, switching, and optimization algorithms to control & adapt the radio system from the physical layer to the top of the communication stack. This paper presents a critical review on different soft computing approaches applied over the cognitive radio issues & also points out different research directions over it.