The exponential growth of Internet of Things (IoT) leads to spectrum-related issues such as Spectrum Allocation and Management. IoT devices are interconnected in heterogeneous networks, which have interference, and hardware-software interconnection problems. Cognitive radio (CR) that has connectivity to the Internet strengthens the concept of "Internet of Things". Due to the diversification of applications, embedding the IoT technology with cognitive capability aids intelligence and improves the overall performance of the system. The Cognitive Internet of Things (CIoT) has emerged as an equipping technology, which focuses on the functions of CR and its potential contribution to IoT. The reason for deploying CR as the central device is to manage and provide an interface to different users. CR has the capabilities to implement artificial intelligence schemes to provide learning features and automatic reconfiguration. An attempt is made to design, and implement a preliminary step called sensing control layer which is the first step out of the framework of CIoT. Software-defined radio (SDR) has been used as the central unit whose function is to sense the spectrum and connect the IoT devices. Experimental results show that SDR as the central unit extends the functions of the network, re-configurability, and also provides interoperability in the heterogeneous network. Keywords Software-defined radio (SDR) • Internet of Things (IoT) • Cognitive radio (CR) • Reconfigurable radio • Spectrum sensing • Spectrum hole • Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) This article is part of the topical collection "Cyber Security and Privacy in Communication Networks" guest edited by