Outage Probability Estimation for Licensed Systems

in the presence of Cognitive Radio Interference

Rachita Dahama, Kevin W. Sowerby, and Gerard B. Rowe
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Email: rdah004@aucklanduni.ac.nz; kw.sowerby@auckland.ac.nz; gb.rowe@auckland.ac.nz
AbstractCognitive radios (CRs) improve spectral efciency
by transmitting unlicensed signals over licensed frequency bands.
A key requirement for CRs is to limit the interference to the
licensed system. However, the variability in the radio channel
caused by fading and shadowing makes this task more difcult.
In this paper the performance of the licensed system has been
analysed by calculating the probability of outage of the licensed
receiver (LR). A Poisson eld of CRs is considered such that the
CRs are distributed uniformly around the LR. A circular exclusion
zone of radius R has been dened with the LR at the center so
that CRs are permitted to transmit only if they are outside this
zone. For the rst time, expressions for outage probabilities have
been developed for different values of R, taking into account the
variability in the radio channel. Rayleigh, lognormal and Suzuki
channels have been analysed. The effects of channel characteristics
on the outage probability have been investigated. Results show
the extent to which increasing R improves the performance of the
licensed system signicantly.
Index TermsCognitive Radio, Fading, Outage Probability,
Service Reliability, Shadowing.
I. INTRODUCTION
T
HE radio spectrum is a scarce resource. Most frequencies
are allocated to licensed users. However, some of these
frequency bands, like the television band are underutilized [1].
A cognitive radio (CR) is a software-dened radio that enhances
the efciency of the radio spectrum by transmitting unlicensed
signals over licensed bands.
CRs should utilize licensed bands without compromising the
performance of the licensed system. The CRs are therefore
required to limit interference at the LR. If the interference
exceeds a threshold then they can either dynamically switch to
another frequency band or reduce the interference power [2].
Solutions to interference control include reducing the transmit
power and increasing the distance between the CRs and the LR.
This paper investigates the effect of LR-CR separation distance
in typical wireless propagation environments.
The radio channel varies signicantly over time. These
variations affect the licensed power as well as the interference
power at the LR. The radio channel causes rapid variations in
the signal level, which is attributed to multipath propagation.
This is called fading and the signal voltage envelope can be
represented statistically by a Rayleigh distribution. The varia-
tion in the mean of the signal envelope is called shadowing.
These are slow variations and are caused by obstructions in
the path of the signal. This is represented by a lognormal
distribution. The effect of fading and shadowing together can
be modeled by a Suzuki distribution [3]. The satisfactory
operation of the licensed system requires that there should be
a minimum level of licensed power at the LR and the licensed
signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) should exceed a
margin known as the cochannel interference protection ratio.
The probability of the two conditions being satised is called
the service reliability, which is used to analyse the performance
of the system [4].
Outage probability techniques have often been used in the
planning of cellular mobile systems [5] but they can also be
applied to the design of CR systems. In [6] the authors have
presented the outage probabilities at the LR for different spec-
trum sharing schemes. The effect of exclusion zones around
receivers has been studied by some authors in the context of
Ad hoc networks [7], [8]. However, the models used in these
papers neglect fading and shadowing. In [9] the authors have
calculated outage probabilities in a multiple access packet radio
network for a Suzuki channel but the model used does not
incorporate an exclusion zone. In this paper, for the rst time,
expressions for outage probabilities in a CR system have been
developed to analyse the effect of an exclusion zone, taking
into account the fading and shadowing in the radio channel.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section II
describes the system model. Section III explains the method
used to evaluate the interference statistics which are used in
Section IV for the calculation of the outage probabilities for
different channels. In Section V the plots for outage probabili-
ties are presented and the results discussed. Finally, in Section
VI conclusions are drawn.
II. THE SYSTEM MODEL
Here a model is presented for the interference caused by
CRs to the licensed system. This model is based on that used
in [6] and [10]. The LR and the CRs are assumed to have omni-
directional antennas. The CRs are distributed uniformly around
the LR and all CRs transmit the same amount of power. The
number of CRs in any area is given by a Poisson distribution
such that if is the average number of radios in a unit area,
the probability of having k radios in a unit area is given by
P(k) =
exp ()
k
k!
. (1)
978-1-4244-2517-4/09/$20.00 2009 IEEE
The mean interference power at the LR from a single CR is
calculated from the propagation distance. If r is the distance
between the LR and a CR and the propagation exponent is
then the unit signal power g (r) = r

. The following
properties should be satised.
lim
r
g (r) = 0, lim
r0
g (r) = , lim
r
r
2
g (r) = 0. (2)
The last expression in (2) implies that should be greater than
2. If 2 the interference power at the LR will become
innite for an innite network [6]. Let us assume that the
interference at the LR is caused by M CRs, where M is
a Poisson distributed random variable. Let r
i
be a random
variable that represents the distance of the ith CR from the
LR (a unit distance of 100 meters has been considered). Let
x
i
be a random variable that can have a Rayleigh, lognormal
or a Suzuki distribution with a unit mean. If P
I
is the power
received from a single CR at a unit distance (100 meters) from
it then the total instantaneous interference power at the LR is
given by
I = P
I

M
r

i
x
i
. (3)
The LR requires a minimum amount of licensed power and
a minimum licensed signal to interference plus noise ratio
(SINR) in order to successfully decode the licensed message.
The minimum required SINR is called the protection ratio r
p
.
The typical values of r
p
range from 10
1.5
10
2
. The protection
ratio expressed in decibel units is represented by R
P
. The
probability of having the SINR greater than r
p
is called the
service reliability P
ser
of the licensed system. The complement
of P
ser
is the outage probability P
out
. If w is the instantaneous
licensed power, I is the instantaneous interference power at the
LR and N is the mean noise power in the channel then,
P
ser
= Prob
_
w
(I +N)
> r
p
_
= Prob
_

M
r

i
x
i
<
1
P
I
_
w
r
p
N
_
_
. (4)
If f
W
(w) is the probability density function (pdf) of the
licensed power and f
Y
(y) is pdf of the normalized interference
power, the service reliability can be expressed as
P
ser
=

_
rpN
f
W
(w)
1
P
I
_
w
rp
N
_
_
0
f
Y
(y) dy dw (5)
=

_
rpN
f
W
(w)F
Y
_
1
P
I
_
w
r
p
N
__
dw, (6)
where F
Y
(y) is the cumulative density function (cdf). The
probability of service at the LR can be increased if there is a
circular exclusion zone of radius R around the LR such that
0 < R < a. In this area the CRs are not permitted to transmit
and therefore the interference power at the LR gets reduced
depending on the value of R. The following sections analyse
the system performance by calculating the service reliability
for different values of R.
III. INTERFERENCE STATISTICS
The cdf of the interference is required for the calculation
of the probability of service. A characteristic function based
approach is used for this evaluation. Let Y
R,a
be the normalized
interference power generated by M CRs uniformly distributed
in a circle of radius a, with an exclusion zone of radius R so
that
Y
R,a
=

M
r

i
x
i
; R r
i
< a. (7)
The characteristic function of Y
R,a
will be

YR,a
() = E (exp (iY
R,a
)) ; > 0, (8)
where E (.) is the expectation operator. Following the steps as
shown in [10] and setting a (8) can be written as

YR,
() = exp

_
0
f
X
(x) T (x) dx

, (9)
where
T (x) = R
2
_
1 e
iR

x
_
+ix
R

_
0
_
g
1
(t)

2
e
itx
dt.
(10)
g
1
(t) denotes the inverse function of g (.).
A. Case 1: No exclusion zone
If R = 0 then the characteristic function in (9) simplies to

Y0,
() = exp

(1 )

_
0
f
X
(x) (ix)

dx

,
(11)
where =
2

and (.) is the gamma function. The character-

istic function can be inverted to yield an stable distribution
[11]. As shown in [10], for = 4 the characteristic function in
(11) becomes a Levy distribution. The cdf of a Levy distribution
is
F
Y
(y) = erfc
__
c
2y
_
, (12)
where c is the scale parameter and is expressed as
c =

(1 ) cos
_

2
_

_
0
x

f
X
(x) dx

. (13)
In [10] only the case where = 4 has been discussed. If
> 4 a closed-form expression for the distribution function
cannot be obtained. In this paper we evaluate the distribution
function numerically from the characteristic function using
Nolovs Theorem [11].
B. Case 2: Exclusion zone present
If R = 0 the characteristic function in (9) can be expressed
as [12]

YR,
() =
exp

_
0
f
X
(x)
_
R
2
_
1 e
ix
R

_
f (, x)
_
dx

, (14)
where
f (, x) = (ix)

inc
_
1 , ixR

_
. (15)

inc
(.) is the incomplete gamma function. It is not possible
to obtain a closed-form expression for the distribution function
from the characteristic function in (14) and therefore the cdf is
evaluated by performing a contour integration [13], namely
F
Y
(y) =
2

_
0
Re
_

YR,
()
_
sin (y)

d. (16)
IV. CALCULATIONS FOR SERVICE RELIABILITY
The performance of the licensed system in the presence of
interference is affected by the propagation environment. The
calculations for P
ser
have been carried out for channels with
Rayleigh fading and lognormal shadowing both separately and
combined. These calculations were focused on analysing the
effect of having an exclusion zone around the LR.
A. Rayleigh fading only
If the variability in the signals is due to Rayleigh fading only,
then the power envelope has an exponential distribution [14].
Therefore, if P
L
is the local mean power of the licensed signal
at the LR the distribution of the licensed power is
f
W
(w) =
1
P
L
exp
_

w
P
L
_
. (17)
P
ser
can be evaluated by substituting f
W
(w) in (6) and making
the variable transform t = w/P
L
to get
P
ser
=

_
rpN
P
L
exp (t) F
Y
_
1
P
I
_
P
L
t
r
p
N
__
dt. (18)
This expression is in a form that can be solved using Gauss-
Laguerre numerical integration so that [15]
P
ser
= e

r
pN
P
L
nGL

g=1
w
g
F
Y
_
P
L
y
g
P
I
r
p
_
. (19)
In (19) the abscissae y
g
are the zeros of the Laguerre poly-
nomials and the weights w
g
are the corresponding Christoffel
numbers. These values are tabulated in [16]. The distribution
f
X
(x) is the same as f
W
(w) but with a unit local mean. If
there is no exclusion zone and = 4 (19) reduces to (12) for
which
c =
_
(1 ) cos
_

2
_
(1 +)
_ 1

. (20)
If the exclusion zone is present (19) reduces to (16) for which
the characteristic function is evaluated [12] using (14) as

YR,
() =
exp
_
R
2
_
t
i(2) t
2
R

(1 )
2
F
1
(1, 2, 2 , t)
__
, (21)
where
t =
iR

1 iR

. (22)
B. Lognormal shadowing only
If the variability in the signals is due to lognormal shadowing
only then the distribution of the licensed power is
f
W
(w) =
10
ln(10)
1

2
2
1
w
exp
_

(10 log
10
w P
L
)
2
2
2
_
.
(23)
where P
L
is the area mean (in dBm) and is the standard
deviation (in dB) of the associated normal distribution. The
expression for P
ser
can be found by substituting f
W
(w) in (6)
and making the variable transform
t =
10 log
10
w P
L

2
2
, (24)
so that
P
ser
=
1

_
u
exp
_
t
2
_
F
Y

1
P
I

10
t

2
2
+P
L
10
r
p
N

dt,
(25)
where
u =
10 log
10
(r
p
N) P
L

2
2
. (26)
The value of P
ser
can be calculated using contour integration.
The distribution f
X
(x) is the same as f
W
(w) but with an
area mean of 0 dBm. In (13), c can be evaluated by making
the variable transform
t =
10 log
10
x

2
2
, (27)
so that
c =

(1 ) cos
_

2
_

_

10
_
t

2
2
10
_
e
t
2
dt

,
(28)
which can be solved using Gauss-Hermite numerical integra-
tion, namely
c =
_

(1 ) cos
_

2
_
nGH

h=1
w
h
10
_
x
h

2
2
10
_
_
1

,
(29)
where w
h
and x
h
are the weights and the abscissae of the
Hermite polynomials. These are tabulated in [17]. In (14) the
characteristic function is evaluated as

YR,
() = exp
_

_
R
2

nGH

h=1
w
h
f (x
h
)
__
, (30)
where
f (v) = R
2
e
iB
v
R

+ (iB
v
)

inc
_
1 ,
iB
v
R

_
. (31)
If = 4 then, [12]
f (v) = R
2
e
iB
v
R

iB
v
erfc
_
_

iB
v
R

_
, (32)
where B = 10

2
2
10
.
C. Rayleigh fading and lognormal shadowing
If the variability in the signal is due to Rayleigh fading and
lognormal shadowing combined then the licensed power has a
Suzuki distribution namely,
f
W
(w) =

_
0
1
A
2
e

w
A
10
ln(10)
1

2
2
exp
_

(10 log
10
AP
L
)
2
2
2
_
dA,
(33)
where P
L
is the mean (in dBm) and is the standard deviation
(in dB) of the associated normal distribution. The expression
for the service reliability can be found by substituting f
W
(w)
in (6) to get
P
ser
=

_
A=0
10
ln(10)
1

2
2
1
A
2
exp
_

(10 log
10
AP
L
)
2
2
2
_

_
w=rpN
e

w
A
F
Y
_
1
P
I
_
w
r
p
N
__
dwdA, (34)
=

_
A=0
10
ln(10)
1

2
2
1
A
exp
_

(10 log
10
AP
L
)
2
2
2
_

rpN
A
nGL

g=1
w
g
F
Y
_
Ay
g
P
I
r
p
_
dA. (35)
Making the variable transform as in (24) and using Gauss-
Hermite numerical integration, (35) can be written as
P
ser
=
1

nGH

h=1
w
h
_
e

r
pN
v
nGL

g=1
w
g
F
Y
_
vy
g
P
I
r
p
_
_
, (36)
where
v = 10
y
h

2
2
+P
L
10
. (37)
The expression for f
X
(x) is the same as f
W
(w) with a mean
of 0 dBm. In (13) c can be evaluated by making the variable
transform as in (27) and following the steps used in (34) and
(35) so that
c =
_

(1 ) (1 +) cos
_

2
_
nGH

h=1
w
h
f (x
h
)
_1

,
(38)
where
f (u) = 10
_
u

2
2
10
_
. (39)
In (14) the characteristic function can be evaluated as [12]

YR,
() = exp
_
R
2
_
1
1

nGH

h=1
w
h
f (x
h
)
__
, (40)
where
f (x) =
1
1 B
x
iR

(2) (iR

) B
x
(1 ) (1 B
x
iR

)
2

2
F
1
_
1, 2, 2 ,
B
x
iR

1 B
x
iR

_
. (41)
In (41) B = 10
_

2
2
10
_
.
V. RESULTS
In Section IV we have presented expressions for the P
ser
at
the LR for Rayleigh, lognormal and Suzuki channels. In this
section plots for the outage probabilities for different values of
the mean licensed power (P
L
) at the LR are presented. It can be
seen in Figures 1 and 2 that the probability of outage decreases
monotonically with increasing P
L
, and therefore SINR. We
can see that for each of the three channel types the outage
probability for R = 0 (no exclusion zone) is signicantly
greater than for R > 0 (exclusion zone present). This difference
arises because for R = 0 the pdf of interference power is the
heavy tailed Levy distribution which corresponds to a signi-
cant probability of having high interference. Increasing R shifts
the pdf towards smaller power values and therefore interference
reduces. Plots for the distribution of the interference have
been shown in [10]. It can be seen that increased standard
deviation shifts the probability curve to the right, which
implies that the outage probability increases. If a propagation
exponent greater than 4 is assumed, then the outage probability
curves shift to the left. This is because there is now a greater
attenuation of the signals being received from the interfering
CRs. Figure 3 presents the exclusion zone required to limit the
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
mean licensed power (dBm)
O
u
t
a
g
e

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
Rayleigh R=0
Rayleigh R=100m
Lognormal R=0, =8dB
Lognormal R=100m, =4dB
Lognormal R=100m, =8dB
Figure 1. Pout against P
L
(dBm) for a Rayleigh and lognormal channel for
= 1, R
P
= 15dB, = 4, P
I
= 60dBm and N = 120dBm.
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
mean licensed power (dBm)
O
u
t
a
g
e

P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
R=100m, =4dB
R=0, =8dB
R=100m, =8dB
R=100m, =12dB
Figure 2. Pout against P
L
(dBm) for a Suzuki channel for = 1, R
P
=
15dB, = 4, P
I
= 60dBm and N = 120dBm.
outage probability at the LR to 10%. The effect of a Suzuki
channel on the required exclusion zone has been analysed for
different and values. A bigger exclusion zone is required
with increased channel valiability. Increasing increases the
interference attenuation and therefore the required exclusion
zone becomes smaller. In [18] the authors have used a shifted-
lognormal approximation for the distribution of interference
power. This can simplify the evaluation of outage probabilities.
However, this approximation provides a good t for only the
high power values in the distribution. New approaches to
approximate interference are being investigated.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
XCOORDINATE (km)
Y

C
O
O
R
D
I
N
A
T
E

(
k
m
)
=5
=4
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Figure 3. Exclusion zone required to limit Pout at LR (0 km,0 km) to 10%
for a Suzuki channel for (i) = 0dB, (ii) = 6dB and (iii) = 10dB. The
parameters used are: = 1, R
P
= 15dB, P
I
= 60dBm, P
I
= 30dBm
and N = 120dBm
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper the effect of spectrum sharing between CRs
and licensed users on the licensed system has been analysed.
A model for the CR interference has been presented, with the
assumption that all CRs transmit the same power. A circular
exclusion zone has been dened around the LR in which CRs
are not permitted to transmit. Expressions for estimating the
service reliability of the LR have been formulated in terms
of the mean licensed power. These give the probability of
achieving both, a minimum level of licensed power and an
acceptable signal to interference plus noise ratio at the LR.
The system performance in Rayleigh, lognormal and Suzuki
channels has been analysed and quantied. The characteristics
of the propagation environment inuence the effectiveness of
the exclusion zone. We have quantied the size of the exclusion
zone required to yield a specic outage probability, for different
channel characteristics. For a xed zone radius a decreased
propagation exponent increases the outage probability and an
increased standard deviation of the signal increases outage
probability. Ongoing research involves incorporating CRs with
different transmit powers and taking into account the depen-
dence of the mean licensed power on the propagation exponent
of the channel between the LR and the LT.
REFERENCES
[1] R. I. C. Chiang, G. B. Rowe, and K. W. Sowerby, A quantitative analysis
of spectral occupancy measurements for cognitive radio, in Proc. IEEE
Vehicular Technology Conference VTC Spring 2007, pp. 30163020.
[2] S. Haykin, Cognitive radio: brain-empowered wireless communications,
IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 23, no. 2, pp.
201220, Feb 2005.
[3] G. L. Stuber, Principles of mobile communication. Boston : Kluwer
Academic, 2001.
[4] K. W. Sowerby and A. G. Williamson, Estimating reception reliability in
cellular mobile radio systems, in Proc. IEEE 42nd Vehicular Technology
Conference, 1013 May 1992, pp. 151154.
[5] , Outage probability calculations for multiple cochannel interferers
in cellular mobile radio systems, IEE Proceedings F Radar and Signal
Processing, vol. 135, no. 3, pp. 208215, Jun 1988.
[6] R. Menon, R. M. Buehrer, and J. H. Reed, Outage probability based
comparison of underlay and overlay spectrum sharing techniques, Proc.
IEEE DySPAN05, Baltimore, USA, pp. 101109, Nov. 2005.
[7] A. Hasan and J. Andrews, The guard zone in wireless ad hoc networks,
IEEE Trans. on Wireless Communications, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 897906,
March 2007.
[8] R. Menon, R. M. Buehrer, and J. H. Reed, Impact of exclusion region
and spreading in spectrum-sharing ad hoc networks, ACM International
Conference Proceeding Series, vol. 222, no. 7, 2006.
[9] M. Zorzi and S. Pupolin, Outage probability in multiple access packet
radio networks in the presence of fading, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular
Technology, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 604610, 1994.
[10] X. Hong, C.-X. Wang, and J. Thompson, Interference Modeling of Cog-
nitive Radio Networks, in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference
VTC Spring 2008, pp. 18511855.
[11] G. Xiaohu, Z. Guangxi, and Z. Yaoting, On the testing for alpha-stable
distributions of network trafc, Computer Communications, vol. 27, pp.
447457, 2004.
[12] I. S. Gradshtein, I. M. Ryzhik, and A. Jeffrey, Table of integrals, series,
and products. New York : Academic Press, 1980.
[13] J. Abate and W. Whitt, The fourier-series method for inverting trans-
forms of probability distributions, Queueing Systems, vol. 10, pp. 588,
1992.
[14] F. Hansen and F. I. Meno, Mobile fading - Rayleigh and lognormal
superimposed, IEEE Trans. on Vehicular Technology, vol. 26, no. 4, pp.
332335, Nov 1977.
[15] P. J. Davis and P. Rabinowitz, Methods for Numerical Integration.
Academic Press, New York, 1975.
[16] E. Slazer and R. Zucker, Table of zeros and weight factors of the rst
fteen laguerre polynomials, Bulletin of the American Mathematical
Society, vol. 55, no. 10, pp. 10041012, October 1949.
[17] M. Abramowitz and A. Stegun, Handbook of Mathematical Functions.
Dover Publications, New York, 1964.
[18] A. Ghasemi and E. Sousa, Interference aggregation in spectrum-sensing
cognitive wireless networks, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal
Processing, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 4156, 2008.