Bio-inspired cognitive phones based on human nervous system

Abstract

A lot of research in the radio domain has focussed on integrating autonomy and smartness capabilities inside future radio equipments like mobile phones. Such a smart radio is called a cognitive radio. This requires complementary management facilities to be added to the radio signal processing facilities present in traditional radios. Hierarchical and Distributed Cognitive Radio Architecture Management (HDCRAM) has been proposed as a solution for managing cognitive radio equipments. HDCRAM can realize the cognitive radio paradigm by integrating all three cognitive cycle stages: sensing, decision making and real-time adaptation. This paper aims at showing an analogy between HDCRAM, a cognitive radio equipment management architecture defined for cognitive radio, and the human nervous system, including both the central and the peripheral nervous systems. This is an originality in this field, as generally electronics has only considered the copying of brain functions (neurons in particular). Obvious similarities have been identified although this was never an a priori goal. This can be verified at several levels: (i) the structure of the cognitive management itself with a general manager (brain) made of, (ii) sensors and their management (sensorial sub-system), (iii) processing functions and their configuration management (motor sub-system), (iv) but also mechanisms which are very close to the biological model, such as reflex principle for real-time reactivity.