• cognitive networks
• channel assignment

Due to increasing number of wireless services and applications, unlicensed spectrum bands results be too much crowded.
Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) try to solve this problem, named spectrum overcrowding, allocating licensend spectrum chunks unused by legitimate users.
IEEE 802.22 standard suggestes to use Digital TV (DTV) channels for this purpose. In this scenario, each Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) chooses randomly a channel to use among all channels identified as free.
In this work, we want to characterize each DTV channel in order to choose the best one for each WRAN. In order to do that, we analyze IEEE 802.22 physical layer to describe each channel through its Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) and its maximum capacity.
Using this classification, we propose a channel assignment algorithm to improve network performances.