Abstract
This paper examines the resource gain that can be obtained from the creation of clusters of nodes in densely populated areas. A single node within each such cluster is designated as a "hotspot"; all other nodes then communicate with a destination node, such as a base station, through such hotspots. We propose a semi distributed algorithm, referred to as coordinated cognitive tethering (CCT), which clusters all nodes and coordinates hotspots to tether over locally available white spaces. CCT performs the following these steps: (a) groups nodes based on a modified k-means clustering algorithm; (b) assigns white-space spectrum to each cluster based on a distributed graph-coloring approach to maximize spectrum reuse, and (c) allocates physical-layer resources to individual users based on local channel information. Unlike small cells (for example, femtocells and WiFi), this approach does not require any additions to existing infrastructure. In addition to providing parallel service to more users than conventional direct communication in cellular networks, simulation results show that CCT can increase the average battery life of devices by 30%, on average.