An Energy-Efficient Unselfish Spectrum Leasing Scheme for Cognitive Radio Networks.

Cooperative Communications in Cognitive Radio (CR) have been introduced as an essential and efficient technique to improve the transmission performance of primary users and offer transmission opportunities for secondary users. In a typical multiuser Cooperative Communication in CR, each primary user can choose one secondary user as a relay node. To encourage the cooperative behavior of the secondary users, primary users lease a fraction of their allocated spectrum to the relay secondary users to transmit their data packets. In this work, a novel unselfish spectrum leasing scheme in CR networks is proposed that offers an energy-efficient solution minimizing the environmental impact of our network. A network management architecture is introduced, and resource allocation is proposed as a constrained sum energy efficiency maximization problem. The optimization problem is formulated and solved using non-linear programming methods and based on a modified Kuhn-Munkres bipartite matching algorithm. System simulations demonstrate an increment in the energy efficiency of the primary users' network compared with previously proposed algorithms.

Ray tracing algorithm for accurate solar irradiance prediction in urban areas.

A ray tracing algorithm has been developed to model solar radiation interaction with complex urban environments and, in particular, its effects, including the total irradiance on each surface and overall dissipated power contribution. The proposed model accounts for multiple reflection and diffuse scattering interactions and is based on a rigorous theory, so that the overall power balance is satisfied at the generic surface element. Such approach is validated against measurements in the present work in simple reference scenarios. The results show the importance of multiple-bounce interactions and diffuse scattering to obtain reliable solar irradiance and heat dissipation estimates in urban areas.