The continuous growth of interconnected devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) presents a challenge in terms of network resources. Cognitive radio (CR) is a promising technology thatcan address the IoT spectral demands by enabling an opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) scheme. The application of full duplex (FD) radios in spectrum sensing enables secondary users (SUs) to perform sensing and transmission simultaneously, and improves the utilization of the spectrum. However, random and dense distributions of FD-enabled SU transmitters (FD-SU TXs) with sensing capabilities in small-cell CR-IoT environments poses new challenges, and creates heterogeneous environments with different spectral opportunities. In this paper, we propose a spatial and temporal spectral-hole sensing framework for FD-SU TXs deployed in CR-IoT spectrum-heterogeneous environment. Incorporating the proposed sensing model, we present the analytical formulation and an evaluation of a utilization of spectrum (UoS) scheme for FD-SU TXs present at different spatialpositions. The numerical results are evaluated under different network and sensing parameters to examine the sensitivities of different parameters. It is demonstrated that self-interference, primary user activity level, and the sensing outcomes in spatial and temporal domains have a significant influence on the utilization performance of spectrum.
Keywords: IoT; cognitive radio; full duplex; spatial–temporal spectral-holes; spectrum sensing; utilization of spectrum.