Spatio-temporal random voting scheme for cognitive networks

An information collection device comprising:

• a region mapping module for mapping a region into a plurality of sectors, where each sector is a portion of the region;
• a sector selection module for selecting a subset of sectors from the plurality of sectors;
• a device selector module for selecting a sensing device from within each sector in the subset of sectors from which to collect information;
• and
• a sensing report collector for collecting sensing reports from each selected sensing device in the subset of sectors, where each sensing report is indicative of whether the sensing device detected a signal energy above a particular threshold in a particular frequency spectrum band.

An information collection device comprising:

• means for mapping a region into a plurality of sectors, where each sector is a portion of the region;
• means for selecting a subset of sectors from the plurality of sectors;
• means for selecting a sensing device from within each sector in the subset of sectors;
• and
• means for collecting sensing reports from each selected sensing device in the subset of sectors, where each sensing report is indicative of whether the sensing device detected a signal energy above a particular threshold in a particular frequency spectrum band.

A processor including a processing circuit adapted to:

• map a region into a plurality of sectors, where each sector is a portion of the region;
• select a subset of sectors from the plurality of sectors;
• select a sensing device from within each sector in the subset of sectors;
• and
• collect sensing reports from each selected sensing device in the subset of sectors, where each sensing report is indicative of whether the sensing device detected a signal energy above a particular threshold in a particular frequency spectrum band.

A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising instructions for collecting information from a plurality of sensing devices in a cognitive wireless network, which when executed by one or more processors causes the processors to:

• map a region into a plurality of sectors, where each sector is a portion of the region;
• select a subset of sectors from the plurality of sectors;
• randomly select a sensing device from within each sector in the subset of sectors;
• and
• collect sensing reports from each selected sensing device in the subset of sectors, where each sensing report is indicative of whether the sensing device detected a signal energy above a particular threshold in a particular frequency spectrum band.