Interference mitigation using spectrum sensing and dynamic frequency hopping

Wireless communications are prone to both unintentional and intentional RF interference. Such interference has significant impact on the reliability of packet transmissions. In this paper, we consider interference mitigation in frequency hopping (FH) systems. We employ cognitive radios (CRs) for proactive interference sensing in such systems. Through this proactive approach, we propose a scheme for dynamic adjustment of the FH sequence. Our protocol, called SSDFH, relies on exploiting the spectrum sensing capabilities of CRs for proactive detection of channel quality. We analyze the characteristics of the proposed SSDFH using a continuous-time Markov chain framework. Level crossing rate (LCR) analysis is used to determine the transition rates for the Markov chain, which are then used to measure the 'channel stability,' a metric that reflects the freshness of sensed channel interference. The selection of different protocol parameters is studied by means of analysis. In particular, we provide a numerical procedure for determining the 'optimal' total sensing time that minimizes the probability of 'black holes.' We run simulations to study the performance of our proposed protocol.