Cognitive Radio Architectures for Cyberspace Operations

The rapid proliferation of wireless communications protocols is accelerating the obsolescence of radio equipment. The RF environment is becoming more complex and increasingly crowded to meet the growing demand for wireless services. A failure of service providers to strictly adhere to common standards complicates matters further. The only way to keep pace is to employ cognitive techniques to control software defined radios to adapt to the unexpected.A cognitive radio can be modeled as an Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) loop. Measurements of the RF spectrum provide evidence for building an operational picture of the RF environment, knowledge and policy dictate the selection of actions in response to this model, executing these actions stimulates changes in the RF environment, and these changes are observed to provide feedback.