CN S2013 SpectrumSensing

www.cs.helsinki.
fi

Overview of Cognitive Radio Basics and
Spectrum Sensing

CN-S2013

Faculty of Science
Department of Computer Science 1

Jan.29, 2013
Suzan Bayhan
CN-S2013
! Cognitive radio: What, why, and how
! Spectrum Sensing: Basics and challenges
Summary of Todays Class
2
Faculty of Science
Department of Computer Science
CN-S2013
" Joseph Mitola III and Gerald Q. Maguire, Jr. (KTH, Sweden), Aug.
1999 IEEE Personal Communications, Cognitive Radio: Making
Software Radios More Personal
" Simon Haykin, Feb. 2005, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications, Cognitive Radio: Brain-Empowered Wireless
Communications
an intelligent wireless communication system that is aware of its
environment and uses the methodology of understanding-by-
building to learn from the environment and adapt to statistical
variations in the input stimuli, with two primary objectives in mind: (1)
highly reliable communication whenever and wherever needed; (2)
efficient utilization of the radio spectrum
Cognitive Radio: Definition and
History
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
Cisco Report: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/
white_paper_c11-520862.html

Wireless data consumption
increases (from Ciscos report)
4
By 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world's
population.
1/27/13 Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 20112016 [Visual Networking Index (VNI)] - Cisco Systems
www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html 2/13
Tablets will exceed 10 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2016.
China will exceed 10 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2016.
Global mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold between 2011 and 2016. Mobile data traffic will grow at
a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78 percent from 2011 to 2016, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month
by 2016.
By the end of 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth,
and by 2016 there will be 1.4 mobile devices per capita. There will be over 10 billion mobile-connected
devices in 2016, including machine-to-machine (M2M) modules-exceeding the world's population at that time
(7.3 billion).
Mobile network connection speeds will increase 9-fold by 2016. The average mobile network connection
speed (189 kbps in 2011) will exceed 2.9 megabits per second (Mbps) in 2016.
In 2016, 4G will be 6 percent of connections, but 36 percent of total traffic. In 2016, a 4G connection will
generate 9 times more traffic on average than a non-4G connection.
By 2016, 39 percent of all global mobile devices could potentially be capable of connecting to an IPv6
mobile network. Over 4 billion devices will be IPv6-capable in 2016.
Two-thirds of the world's mobile data traffic will be video by 2016. Mobile video will increase 25-fold
between 2011 and 2016, accounting for over 70 percent of total mobile data traffic by the end of the forecast
period.
Mobile-connected tablets will generate almost as much traffic in 2016 as the entire global mobile
network in 2012. The amount of mobile data traffic generated by tablets in 2016 (1.1 exabytes per month) will
be approximately equal to the total amount of global mobile data traffic in 2012 (1.3 exabytes per month).
The average smartphone will generate 2.6 GB of traffic per month in 2016, a 17-fold increase over the
2011 average of 150 MB per month. Aggregate smartphone traffic in 2016 will be 50 times greater than it is
today, with a CAGR of 119 percent.
By 2016, over 3.1 exabytes of mobile data traffic will be offloaded to the fixed network by means of dual-
mode devices and femtocells each month. Without dual-mode and femtocell offload of handset and tablet
traffic, total mobile data traffic would grow at a CAGR of 84 percent between 2011 and 2016 (21-fold growth),
instead of the projected CAGR of 78 percent (18-fold growth).
The Middle East and Africa will have the strongest mobile data traffic growth of any region at 104
percent CAGR. This region will be followed by Asia Pacific at 84 percent and Central and Eastern Europe at
83 percent.
China will account for over 10 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2016, up from less than 5 percent
in 2011.
Appendix A summarizes the details and methodology of the VNI forecast.
2011 Year in Review and Outlook for 2012
Mobile Data Traffic More Than Doubled in 2011
Global mobile data traffic more than doubled (2.3-fold growth, or 133 percent increase) in 2011, for the fourth
year in a row. It is a testament to the momentum of the mobile industry that this growth persisted despite
global economic uncertainties, the broad implementation of tiered mobile data packages, and an increase in
the amount of mobile traffic offloaded to the fixed network.
Mobile Data Traffic Will Double Again in 2012
Cisco estimates that traffic in 2012 will grow 2.1-fold (110 percent), reflecting a continuation in the tapering of
growth rates. The evolving device mix and the migration of traffic from the fixed network to the mobile network
have the potential to bring the growth rate higher, while tiered pricing and traffic offload may reduce this
effect. The current growth rates of mobile data traffic resemble those of the fixed network from 1997 through
2001, when the average yearly growth was 150 percent (Table 1). In the case of the fixed network, the growth
rate remained in the range of 150 percent for 5 years.
Table 1. Global Mobile Data Growth Today is Similar to Global Internet Growth in the Late 1990s
Global Internet Traffic Growth (Fixed)

Global Mobile Data Traffic Growth
1997 178%

2009 140%
1998 124%

2010 159%
1999 128%

2011 133%
2000 195%

2012 (estimate) 110%
2001 133%

2013 (estimate) 90%
2002 103%

2014 (estimate) 78%
Source: Cisco VNI Mobile, 2012
In the long term, mobile data and fixed traffic should settle into the same growth rate, although the mobile
data growth rate is likely to remain higher than the fixed growth rate over the next decade.
Global Mobile Data Traffic, 2011 to 2016
Overall mobile data traffic is expected to grow to 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016, an 18-fold increase over
2011. Mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR of 78 percent from 2011 to 2016 (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Cisco Forecasts 10.8 Exabytes per Month of Mobile Data Traffic by 2016
CN-S2013
" Radio spectrum: 3kHz to
300 GHz
" The use of radio spectrum
for communication dates back
to
How is the wireless spectrum is
managed?
Faculty of Science
Image from http://kids.britannica.com/elementary/
art-87886/Guglielmo-Marconi-is-pictured-with-his-
telegraph-equipment
" 1895: Guglielmo Marconi,
radio signal transmission
using telegraph codes over
1,25 mile distance
" Static Spectrum Access
CN-S2013
Faculty of Science

Use of radio frequencies
3 kHz
R
a
d
i
o

s
p
e
c
t
r
u
m

Electromagnetic spectrum [Hz]
10
23

10
22

10
21

10
20

10
19

10
18

10
17

10
16

10
15

10
14

10
12

10
12

10
11

10
10

10
9

10
8

10
7

10
6

10
5

10
4

10
3

10
2

10
1

Not
allocated

LA PR-27 CB

TV

PMR

RHA68
FM-radio

PMR

TV
Terrestrial digital audio broadcasting

Virve PMR
TV and Digital TV
GSM
900

GPS
Wind profiler
radars
Sat.
nav.
GSM1800 DECT UMTS

UMTS

RLAN
WLAN
Blue-
Tooth
IMT-2000/UMTS
expansion band

FWA
RLAN
WLAN

FWA

FWA

Not allocated
Fixed
Mobile
Broadcasting
Maritime mobile

Aeronautical mobile

Mobile-satellite

Land mobile

Earth exploration-satellite

Fixed-satellite

Space operation

Amateur

Radio astronomy

Space research

Inter-satellite

Broadcasting-satellite

Meteorological-satellite

Radiolocation

Radionavigation-satellite

Maritime radionavigation

Aeronautical radionavigation

Radionavigation

30 kHz 300 kHz 3 MHz 30 MHz
30 MHz 300 MHz 100 MHz 200 MHz
300 MHz 3 GHz 2 GHz 1 GHz
3 GHz 10 GHz 20 GHz 30 GHz
30 GHz 100 GHz 200 GHz 300 GHz
Note: The division of frequencies between services and the usage
indicated in the picture only gives an overview of the frequency
utilisation. More detailed information can be obtained from
FICORA's Regulation 4 and the annexed Frequency Allocation
Table (links from this picture).
FICORA, 16.2.2005
VLF LF MF HF
VHF
UHF
SHF
EHF
VLF (Very Low Frequency) VHF (Very High Frequency)
LF (Low Frequency) UHF (Ultra High Frequency)
MF (Medium Frequency) SHF (Super High Frequency)
HF (High Frequency) EHF (Extremely High Frequency)

Use of Radio Frequencies in
Finland (www.ficora.fi)
CN-S2013
" License for a large region, usually country-wide
" Large chunk of licensed spectrum (expensive licenses)
" Barriers to new ideas
" Prohibited spectrum access by unlicensed users
" ISM bands are unlicensed # WLAN bands at 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz
" Temporary short range licenses
Shortcomings of current spectrum
management
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
" The Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA)
" International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
" European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)

Radio Spectrum Use in Finland
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
Ficora allocates spectrum in
Finland
Faculty of Science

How much is this frequency? Calculate the fee for frequency!
http://www.ficora.fi/en/index/luvat/taajuusmaksut/laskentakaavatjakertoimet.html

You can check from this document:
http://www.ficora.fi/attachments/englantiav/673vb43bJ/TJTen_20042012.pdf

You can find radio spectrum regulations in Finland here:
http://www.ficora.fi/en/index/palvelut/palvelutaiheittain/radiotaajuudet.html

CN-S2013
Spectrum Measurements
Faculty of Science
Image from RWTH http://www.inets.rwth-
aachen.de/static-spectrum.html
Image from http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/WiCo/doku.php?
id=research#cognitive_radio
" Measurement campaigns have
shown that there is plenty of
unused spectrum!
" Working time vs. night time
usage
" City-center to suburb usage
CN-S2013
Cognitive Radio (CR)
11
Faculty of Science
" There is a huge demand for spectrum, but there is unused
spectrum # Radio spectrum is inefficiently used.

! Change in ownership; a resource is owned by the one who
uses it. Sharing for sustainability.
! Static spectrum management since 1900s.
! Imagine a world with no-lane-changing.
! Smarter schemes: Dynamic spectrum access (DSA)
CN-S2013
Faculty of Science
Primary User, Secondary User
$ Licensed, primary,
incumbent, higher-priority
user: PU
$ Secondary, cognitive,
unlicensed user: SU, CR
$ Spectrum hole, white
space, white spectrum,
idle frequency/channel/
band

Cognitive Radio in Brief
Basic Denitions
Time
Power
Frequency
PU transmission CR
Primary User (PU),
Licensed User,
Incumbent User
Spectrum opportunity,
white space, hole, gap
Secondary User (SU),
Cognitive Radio (CR)
What: A Cognitive
Radio (CR): smart radio,
DSA capability,
environment-aware,
self-aware, adaptive
Suzan Bayhan (HIIT) Energy-Ecient Scheduling for Cellular CRNs October 2012 4 / 38
CN-S2013
" Hardware: Static, once designed at the factory, never
changed
" SDR: Reconfigurable radio (e.g. operation frequency,
modulation type)
" Multiple standards
" Multiple bands

Software Defined Radio (SDR)
Faculty of Science
SDR is the building block of the CR.

CN-S2013
How does cognitive radio work?
Faculty of Science
Cognitive Radio in Brief
Cognitive Cycle
Spectrum
Handover
Signal analysis scheme
RF front-end capabilities
Transmission power
Transmission duration
Transmission bandwidth
Modulation and coding
Antenna orientation
Operation mode (sense,
sleep, idle or transmit)
Type of sensing (proactive or
reactive)
Period of sensing
Sensing duration
Scheduling of the sensing
intervals
Sensing architecture
Relability of sensing
(Probability of detection,
Probability of false alarm)
PHY
MAC
Channel quality
Interference generated
Radio Environment
Spectrum
Sensing
RF input
Spectrum
Decision
Spectrum
Sharing
Transmission
Spectrum hole
discovery
PU detection
CR: a wireless device that can switch from one frequency to another.
Suzan Bayhan (HIIT) Energy-Ecient Scheduling for Cellular CRNs October 2012 5 / 38
SPECTRUM
SENSING
" Cognitive Cycle
Image from http://pgcoaching.nl

CN-S2013
Reading Material:
- T. Yucek and H. Arslan A
survey of spectrum sensing algorithms for cognitive radio
applications, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, vol. 11,
no. 1, pp. 116-130, 2009.
- Ghasemi, Amir, and Elvino S. Sousa.
Spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks: requirements,
challenges and design trade-offs. IEEE Communications Magazine,
46.4 (2008): 32-39.

Spectrum Sensing Reading
Material
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
What is spectrum sensing?
Faculty of Science
Time
Time
1- Sense:
There is PU
2- Sense: IDLE
3- Sense: PU
PU collision:
Interference or
harmful interference
CN-S2013
1- Sense for vacating the band if PU arrives. CR must not harm
PUs
2- Sense for finding unused spectrum

How to measure quality of sensing?
Probability of detection (P
d
) # Higher is better
Probability of false alarm (P
f
) # Lower is better

Spectrum Sensing
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
Various aspects of spectrum
sensing
Faculty of Science
Y
UCEK and ARSLAN: A SURVEY OF SPECTRUM SENSING ALGORITHMS FOR COGNITIVE RADIO APPLICATIONS 117
Multi-Dimensional Spectrum Sensing
External Sensing
Distributed
Centralized
Cooperative
Local (Device-centric)
Cooperative Sensing
Geo-location + Database
Beacon
External Sensing
Internal (Collacotaed) Sensi ng
Approaches
Bluetooth
IEEE 802.22
IEEE 802.11k
Standards that employ sensing
Reactive/Proactive sensing
Waveform Based Sensing
Radio Identification Based Sensing
Spectral Correlation (Cyclostationarity)
Energy Detector
Matched Filtering
Enabling Algorithms
Sensing Frequency and Duration
Security
Decision Fusion
Spread Spectrum Users
Hidden Primary User Problem
Hardware Requirements
Challenges
Spectrum Sensing
Fig. 1. Various aspects of spectrum sensing for cognitive radio.
modeling of network trafc and utilization of these models for
prediction of primary user behavior is studied in Section VI.
Finally, sensing features of some modern wireless standards
are explained in Section VII and our conclusions are presented
in Section VIII.
II. MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SPECTRUM AWARENESS
The denition of opportunity determines the ways of mea-
suring and exploiting the spectrum space. The conventional
denition of the spectrum opportunity, which is often dened
as a band of frequencies that are not being used by the
primary user of that band at a particular time in a particular
geographic area [7], only exploits three dimensions of the
spectrum space: frequency, time, and space. Conventional
sensing methods usually relate to sensing the spectrum in these
three dimensions. However, there are other dimensions that
need to be explored further for spectrum opportunity. For ex-
ample, the code dimension of the spectrum space has not been
explored well in the literature. Therefore, the conventional
spectrum sensing algorithms do not know how to deal with
signals that use spread spectrum, time or frequency hopping
codes. As a result, these types of signals constitute a major
problem in sensing the spectrum as discussed in Section III-C.
If the code dimension is interpreted as part of the spectrum
space, this problem can be avoided and new opportunities
for spectrum usage can be created. Naturally, this brings
about new challenges for detection and estimation of this
new opportunity. Similarly, the angle dimension has not been
exploited well enough for spectrum opportunity. It is assumed
that the primary users and/or the secondary users transmit
in all the directions. However, with the recent advances in
multi-antenna technologies, e.g. beamforming, multiple users
can be multiplexed into the same channel at the same time
in the same geographical area. In other words, an additional
dimension of spectral space can be created as opportunity.
This new dimension also creates new opportunities for spectral
estimation where not only the frequency spectrum but also
the angle of arrivals (AoAs) needs to be estimated. Please
note that angle dimension is different than geographical space
dimension. In angle dimension, a primary and a secondary
user can be in the same geographical area and share the
same channel. However, geographical space dimension refers
to physical separation of radios in distance.
With these new dimensions, sensing only the frequency
spectrum usage falls short. The radio space with the introduced
dimensions can be dened as a theoretical hyperspace occu-
pied by radio signals, which has dimensions of location, angle
of arrival, frequency, time, and possibly others [8], [9]. This
hyperspace is called electrospace, transmission hyperspace,
radio spectrum space, or simply spectrum space by various au-
thors, and it can be used to describe how the radio environment
can be shared among multiple (primary and/or secondary)
systems [9][11]. Various dimensions of this space and corre-
sponding measurement/sensing requirements are summarized
in Table I along with some representative pictures. Each
dimension has its own parameters that should be sensed for a
complete spectrum awareness as indicated in this table.
It is of crucial importance to dene such an n-dimensional
space for spectrum sensing. Spectrum sensing should include
the process of identifying occupancy in all dimensions of the
spectrum space and nding spectrum holes, or more precisely
spectrum space holes. For example a certain frequency can be
occupied for a given time, but it might be empty in another
time. Hence, temporal dimension is as important as frequency
dimension. The idle periods between bursty transmissions of
wireless local area network (WLAN) signals are, for example,
exploited for opportunistic usage in [12]. This example can be
extended to the other dimensions of spectrum space given in
Table I. As a result of this requirement, advanced spectrum
sensing algorithms that offer awareness in multiple dimensions
of the spectrum space should be developed.
III. CHALLENGES
Before getting into the details of spectrum sensing tech-
niques, challenges associated with the spectrum sensing for
cognitive radio are given in this section.
A. Hardware Requirements
Spectrum sensing for cognitive radio applications requires
high sampling rate, high resolution analog to digital converters
(ADCs) with large dynamic range, and high speed signal pro-
cessors. Noise variance estimation techniques have been popu-
larly used for optimal receiver designs like channel estimation,
soft information generation etc., as well as for improved hand-
off, power control, and channel allocation techniques [13].
Authorized licensed use limited to: ULAKBIM UASL - BOGAZICI UNIVERSITESI. Downloaded on October 21, 2009 at 09:54 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CN-S2013 11 April 2012
Faculty of Science
Sensing: PHY and MAC Layer
Issues
PHY Sensing
Spectrum Sensor
at PHY
MAC Sensing
Sensing and access
strategy

CR SENSING DESIGN = SENSOR + SENSING STRATEGY + ACCESS

CN-S2013
" Energy Detector: Measures the energy received on a primary
band during an observation interval and declares a white space if
the measured energy is less than a properly set threshold. (2) Do
not differentiate PU and CR signals (3) Low complexity
" Waveform-based Sensing: (1) Preambles, midambles can be
used to detect PU signals. (2) Short measurement time;
Susceptible to synchronization errors
" Match Filtering MF: (1) If transmitted signal is known, test using
filters. (2) Dedicated circuitry for each primary licensee
" Radio Identification: Identifying the transmission technologies
used by PUs, channel bandwidth, coverage etc.
" Cyclostationary: PU signal differentiated from noise

PHY Sensing
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
Energy Detector:
Binary Hypothesis Test
Faculty of Science
Y
and poor performance under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
values [48]. Moreover, energy detectors do not work efciently
for detecting spread spectrum signals [26], [59].
Let us assume that the received signal has the following
simple form
y(n) = s(n) +w(n) (1)
where s(n) is the signal to be detected, w(n) is the additive
white Gaussian noise (AWGN) sample, and n is the sample
index. Note that s(n) = 0 when there is no transmission by
primary user. The decision metric for the energy detector can
be written as
M =
N
n=0
|y(n)|
2
, (2)
where N is the size of the observation vector. The decision
on the occupancy of a band can be obtained by comparing
the decision metric M against a xed threshold
E
. This
is equivalent to distinguishing between the following two
hypotheses:
H
0
: y(n) = w(n), (3)
H
1
: y(n) = s(n) +w(n). (4)
The performance of the detection algorithm can be sum-
marized with two probabilities: probability of detection P
D
and probability of false alarm P
F
. P
D
is the probability of
detecting a signal on the considered frequency when it truly
is present. Thus, a large detection probability is desired. It can
be formulated as
P
D
= Pr (M >
E
|H
1
) . (5)
P
F
is the probability that the test incorrectly decides that the
considered frequency is occupied when it actually is not, and
it can be written as
P
F
= Pr (M >
E
|H
0
) . (6)
P
F
should be kept as small as possible in order to prevent
underutilization of transmission opportunities. The decision
threshold
E
can be selected for nding an optimum balance
between P
D
and P
F
. However, this requires knowledge of
noise and detected signal powers. The noise power can be
estimated, but the signal power is difcult to estimate as it
changes depending on ongoing transmission characteristics
and the distance between the cognitive radio and primary
user. In practice, the threshold is chosen to obtain a certain
false alarm rate [65]. Hence, knowledge of noise variance is
sufcient for selection of a threshold.
The white noise can be modeled as a zero-mean Gaussian
random variable with variance
2
w
, i.e. w(n) = N(0,
2
w
).
For a simplied analysis, let us model the signal term as a
zero-mean Gaussian variable as well, i.e. s(n) = N(0,
2
s
).
The model for s(n) is more complicated as fading should
also be considered. Because of these assumptions, the decision
metric (2) follows chi-square distribution with 2N degrees of
freedom
2
2N
and hence, it can be modeled as
M =
2
w
2

2
2N
H
0
,
2
w
+
2
s
2

2
2N
H
1
.
(7)
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Probability of Detection (P
D
)
P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

o
f

F
a
l
s
e

A
l
a
r
m

(
P
F
)

SNR=2.5 dB
SNR=0 dB
SNR=2.5 dB
Fig. 3. ROC curves for energy detector based spectrum sensing under
different SNR values.
For energy detector, the probabilities P
F
and P
D
can be
calculated as [41]
1
P
F
= 1
L
f
L
t
,

E
2
w
, (8)
P
D
= 1
L
f
L
t
,

E
2
w
+
2
s
, (9)
where
E
is the decision threshold, and (a, x) is the incom-
plete gamma function as given in [66] (ref. Equation 6.5.1).
In order to compare the performances for different threshold
values, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves can be
used. ROC curves allow us to explore the relationship between
the sensitivity (probability of detection) and specicity (false
alarm rate) of a sensing method for a variety of different
thresholds, thus allowing the determination of an optimal
threshold. Fig. 3 shows the ROC curves for different SNR
values. SNR is dened as the ratio of the primary users signal
power to noise power, i.e. SNR=
2
s
/
2
w
. The number of used
samples is set to 15 in this gure, i.e. N = 15 in (2). As this
gure clearly shows, the performance of the threshold detector
increases at high SNR values.
The threshold used in energy detector based sensing algo-
rithms depends on the noise variance. Consequently, a small
noise power estimation error causes signicant performance
loss [67]. As a solution to this problem, noise level is estimated
dynamically by separating the noise and signal subspaces
using multiple signal classication (MUSIC) algorithm [68].
Noise variance is obtained as the smallest eigenvalue of the
incoming signals autocorrelation. Then, the estimated value
is used to choose the threshold for satisfying a constant false
alarm rate. An iterative algorithm is proposed to nd the
decision threshold in [62]. The threshold is found iteratively to
satisfy a given condence level, i.e. probability of false alarm.
Forward methods based on energy measurements are studied
for unknown noise power scenarios in [54]. The proposed
1
Please note that the notation used in [41] is slightly different. Moreover,
the noise power is normalized before it is fed into the threshold device in [41].
" H
0
: The frequency is idle, there is no PU signal
" H
1
: The frequency is occupied, there is PU signal
" w(n): Noise, s(n): PU signal, y(n): Measured signal, N number of
samples
H
0
or H
1
?
Y
and poor performance under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
values [48]. Moreover, energy detectors do not work efciently
for detecting spread spectrum signals [26], [59].
Let us assume that the received signal has the following
simple form
y(n) = s(n) +w(n) (1)
where s(n) is the signal to be detected, w(n) is the additive
white Gaussian noise (AWGN) sample, and n is the sample
index. Note that s(n) = 0 when there is no transmission by
primary user. The decision metric for the energy detector can
be written as
M =
N
n=0
|y(n)|
2
, (2)
where N is the size of the observation vector. The decision
on the occupancy of a band can be obtained by comparing
the decision metric M against a xed threshold
E
. This
is equivalent to distinguishing between the following two
hypotheses:
H
0
: y(n) = w(n), (3)
H
1
: y(n) = s(n) +w(n). (4)
The performance of the detection algorithm can be sum-
marized with two probabilities: probability of detection P
D
and probability of false alarm P
F
. P
D
is the probability of
detecting a signal on the considered frequency when it truly
is present. Thus, a large detection probability is desired. It can
be formulated as
P
D
= Pr (M >
E
|H
1
) . (5)
P
F
is the probability that the test incorrectly decides that the
considered frequency is occupied when it actually is not, and
it can be written as
P
F
= Pr (M >
E
|H
0
) . (6)
P
F
should be kept as small as possible in order to prevent
underutilization of transmission opportunities. The decision
threshold
E
can be selected for nding an optimum balance
between P
D
and P
F
. However, this requires knowledge of
noise and detected signal powers. The noise power can be
estimated, but the signal power is difcult to estimate as it
changes depending on ongoing transmission characteristics
and the distance between the cognitive radio and primary
user. In practice, the threshold is chosen to obtain a certain
false alarm rate [65]. Hence, knowledge of noise variance is
sufcient for selection of a threshold.
The white noise can be modeled as a zero-mean Gaussian
random variable with variance
2
w
, i.e. w(n) = N(0,
2
w
).
For a simplied analysis, let us model the signal term as a
zero-mean Gaussian variable as well, i.e. s(n) = N(0,
2
s
).
The model for s(n) is more complicated as fading should
also be considered. Because of these assumptions, the decision
metric (2) follows chi-square distribution with 2N degrees of
freedom
2
2N
and hence, it can be modeled as
M =
2
w
2

2
2N
H
0
,
2
w
+
2
s
2

2
2N
H
1
.
(7)
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Probability of Detection (P
D
)
P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

o
f

F
a
l
s
e

A
l
a
r
m

(
P
F
)

SNR=2.5 dB
SNR=0 dB
SNR=2.5 dB
Fig. 3. ROC curves for energy detector based spectrum sensing under
different SNR values.
For energy detector, the probabilities P
F
and P
D
can be
calculated as [41]
1
P
F
= 1
L
f
L
t
,

E
2
w
, (8)
P
D
= 1
L
f
L
t
,

E
2
w
+
2
s
, (9)
where
E
is the decision threshold, and (a, x) is the incom-
plete gamma function as given in [66] (ref. Equation 6.5.1).
In order to compare the performances for different threshold
values, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves can be
used. ROC curves allow us to explore the relationship between
the sensitivity (probability of detection) and specicity (false
alarm rate) of a sensing method for a variety of different
thresholds, thus allowing the determination of an optimal
threshold. Fig. 3 shows the ROC curves for different SNR
values. SNR is dened as the ratio of the primary users signal
power to noise power, i.e. SNR=
2
s
/
2
w
. The number of used
samples is set to 15 in this gure, i.e. N = 15 in (2). As this
gure clearly shows, the performance of the threshold detector
increases at high SNR values.
The threshold used in energy detector based sensing algo-
rithms depends on the noise variance. Consequently, a small
noise power estimation error causes signicant performance
loss [67]. As a solution to this problem, noise level is estimated
dynamically by separating the noise and signal subspaces
using multiple signal classication (MUSIC) algorithm [68].
Noise variance is obtained as the smallest eigenvalue of the
incoming signals autocorrelation. Then, the estimated value
is used to choose the threshold for satisfying a constant false
alarm rate. An iterative algorithm is proposed to nd the
decision threshold in [62]. The threshold is found iteratively to
satisfy a given condence level, i.e. probability of false alarm.
Forward methods based on energy measurements are studied
for unknown noise power scenarios in [54]. The proposed
1
Please note that the notation used in [41] is slightly different. Moreover,
the noise power is normalized before it is fed into the threshold device in [41].
9
Figure 2.2. Block diagram of conventional energy detector.
2.2.1. Conventional Energy Detection in AWGN Channel
Under AWGN channel, energy received (O
i
=
2TW
j=1
Y
2
ij
) by secondary user i follows
the distribution
f(O
i
|)
2
2TW
H
0
2
2TW
(2) H
1
(2.2)
where
2
2TW
and
2
2TW
(2) represent central and non-central chi square distributions
[10, 22, 23], TW and represent the time bandwidth product and SNR, respectively.
Under AWGN channel conditions, SNR value is xed and it aects the separation be-
tween conditional probability distribution functions. Example probability distribution
functions with dierent SNR values are depicted in Figure 2.3.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.1
O
i
f
(

O
i

)

!
2
2TW
!
2
2TW
(2"); "=1dB
!
2
2TW
(2"); "=10dB
Figure 2.3. Example O
i
probability distribution functions with dierent SNR values
(TW = 5).
High SNR separates the distributions enough to decide safely and with a rea-
sonable probability of error. However, under low SNR conditions it is dicult to
CN-S2013
Effect of Signal to Noise Ratio
(SNR)
Faculty of Science
Decibel: 10log10(P2/P1)
Generally, sensing performance increases under increasing SNR.
CN-S2013
Comparison of Sensing Schemes
Faculty of Science
124 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 11, NO. 1, FIRST QUARTER 2009
Cyclostationary
Radio
Identification
Match
Filtering Sensing
Waveform-based
Energy
Detector
A
c
c
u
r
a
c
y
Complexity
Fig. 4. Main sensing methods in terms of their sensing accuracies and
complexities.
be a priori information about the primary users characteristics
and primary users should transmit known patterns or pilots.
The performance of energy detector based sensing is limited
when two common assumptions do not hold [25]. The noise
may not be stationary and its variance may not be known.
Other problems with the energy detector include baseband
lter effects and spurious tones [63]. It is stated in literature
that cyclostationary-based methods perform worse than energy
detector based sensing methods when the noise is stationary.
However, in the presence of co-channel or adjacent channel
interferers, noise becomes non-stationary. Hence, energy de-
tector based schemes fail while cyclostationarity-based algo-
rithms are not affected [85]. On the other hand, cyclostationary
features may be completely lost due to channel fading [83],
[100]. It is shown in [100] that model uncertainties cause an
SNR wall for cyclostationary based feature detectors simi-
lar to energy detectors [92]. Furthermore, cyclostationarity-
based sensing is known to be vulnerable to sampling clock
offsets [85].
While selecting a sensing method, some tradeoffs should
be considered. The characteristics of primary users are the
main factor in selecting a method. Cyclostationary features
contained in the waveform, existence of regularly transmitted
pilots, and timing/frequency characteristics are all important.
Other factors include required accuracy, sensing duration
requirements, computational complexity, and network require-
ments.
Estimation of trafc in a specic geographic area can be
done locally (by one cognitive radio only) using one of the
algorithms given in this section. However, information from
different cognitive radios can be combined to obtain a more
accurate spectrum awareness. In the following section, we
present the concept of cooperative sensing where multiple cog-
nitive radios work together for performing spectrum sensing
task collaboratively.
V. COOPERATIVE SENSING
Cooperation is proposed in the literature as a solution to
problems that arise in spectrum sensing due to noise uncer-
tainty, fading, and shadowing. Cooperative sensing decreases
the probabilities of mis-detection and false alarm consider-
ably. In addition, cooperation can solve hidden primary user
problem and it can decrease sensing time [23][25].
The interference to primary users caused by cognitive radio
devices employing spectrum access mechanisms based on a
simple listen-before-talk (LBT) scheme is investigated in [57]
via analysis and computer simulations. Results show that
even simple local sensing can be used to explore the unused
spectrum without causing interference to existing users. On
the other hand, it is shown analytically and through numerical
results that collaborative sensing provides signicantly higher
spectrum capacity gains than local sensing. The fact that
cognitive radio acts without any knowledge about the location
of the primary users in local sensing degrades the sensing
performance.
Challenges of cooperative sensing include developing ef-
cient information sharing algorithms and increased complex-
ity [101], [102]. In cooperative sensing architectures, the con-
trol channel (pilot channel) can be implemented using different
methodologies. These include a dedicated band, an unlicensed
band such as ISM, and an underlay system such as ultra wide
band (UWB) [103]. Depending on the system requirements,
one of these methods can be selected. Control channel can
be used for sharing spectrum sensing results among cognitive
users as well as for sharing channel allocation information.
Various architectures for control channels are proposed in the
cognitive radio literature [104], [105]. A time division multiple
access (TDMA)-based protocol for exchange of sensing data
is proposed in [60]. Cognitive radios are divided into clusters
and scanning data is sent to the cluster head in slots of frames
assigned to a particular cluster. As far as the networking is
concerned, the coordination algorithm should have reduced
protocol overhead and it should be robust to changes and
failures in the network. Moreover, the coordination algorithm
should introduce a minimum amount of delay.
Collaborative spectrum sensing is most effective when
collaborating cognitive radios observe independent fading or
shadowing [25], [61]. The performance degradation due to
correlated shadowing is investigated in [45], [106] in terms
of missing the opportunities. It is found that it is more
advantageous to have the same amount of users collaborating
over a large area than over a small area. In order to combat
shadowing, beamforming and directional antennas can also
be used [25]. In [42], it is shown that cooperating with all
users in the network does not necessarily achieve the optimum
performance and cognitive users with highest primary users
signal to noise ratio are chosen for collaboration. In [42],
constant detection rate and constant false alarm rate are used
for optimally selecting the users for collaborative sensing.
Cooperation can be among cognitive radios or external
sensors can be used to build a cooperative sensing network.
In the former case, cooperation can be implemented in two
fashions: centralized or distributed [107]. These two methods
and external sensing are discussed in the following sections.
A. Centralized Sensing
In centralized sensing, a central unit collects sensing infor-
mation from cognitive devices, identies the available spec-
trum, and broadcasts this information to other cognitive radios
or directly controls the cognitive radio trafc.
1. Energy Detector
2. Waveform-based Sensing
3. Match Filtering
4. Radio Identification
5. Cyclostationary
CN-S2013
Types of Spectrum Sensing
Faculty of Science
Proactive
Reactive
Local
Cooperative
Distributed
Centralized
In-band
Out-of-
band
Synchroni
ous
Asynchro
nious
Sequential Parallel
SPECTRUM
SENSING
CN-S2013
Parallel
Sequential
Proactive
Reactive
Local
Cooperative
Centralized
Distributed
Synchronous
Asynchron.
In-band
Out-of-band
Sense channels 1 to N at the same time (parallel)#
requires N sensing device!
If there are N frequency channels
Sequential: Sense channels one by one. Which order?
May take too long to find an empty channel.
Parallel vs. Sequential Sensing
CN-S2013
Proactive
Reactive
Local
Cooperative
Centralized
Distributed
Synchronous
Asynchron.
In-band
Out-of-band
Parallel
Sequential
Proactive Sensing:
CR senses even if it will not transmit immediately,
e.g. periodic sensing.

$ Trade-off
collected information about the channels vs. sensing
cost

Reactive Sensing:
CR senses only if it will transmit or receive

$ Energy-efficient, time to find an idle channel may
be longer than Proactive Sensing.

Proactive vs. Reactive Sensing
CN-S2013
Proactive
Reactive
Local
Cooperative
Centralized
Distributed
Synchronous
Asynchron.
In-band
Out-of-band
Parallel
Sequential
Local Sensing:
Each CR senses itself and uses its sensing data to
give a decision on channel state, i.e. idle or busy
$ What if hidden node or bad channel conditions?
Cooperative Sensing:
CR shares its sensing data with others and utilize the
sensing outcomes of others to give a decision

$ Robust to sensing errors due to hidden node or
fading channels.
$ Cost of cooperation?

Cooperative vs. Non-
cooperative Sensing
CN-S2013
Cooperative Sensing
Faculty of Science
Y
TABLE II
COMPARISON OF SINGLE-RADIO AND DUAL-RADIO SENSING
ALGORITHMS.
Single-Radio Double-Radio
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
- Higher spectrum ef-
ciency
- Better sensing accuracy
Disadvantages
- Lower spectrum ef-
ciency
- Poor sensing accuracy
- Higher cost
- Higher power consump-
tion
- Higher complexity
in Table II. One might prefer one architecture over the other
depending on the available resources and performance and/or
data rate requirements.
There are already available hardware and software platforms
for the cognitive radio. GNU Radio [20], Universal Software
Radio Peripheral (USRP) [21] and Shared Spectrums XG
Radio [22] are some to name. Mostly energy detector based
sensing is used in these platforms because of its simplicity.
However, there are not much detail in literature on the exact
implementation. Second generation hardware platforms will
probably be equipped with more sophisticated techniques.
B. Hidden Primary User Problem
The hidden primary user problem is similar to the hidden
node problem in Carrier Sense Multiple Accessing (CSMA). It
can be caused by many factors including severe multipath fad-
ing or shadowing observed by secondary users while scanning
for primary users transmissions. Fig. 2 shows an illustration
of a hidden node problem where the dashed circles show
the operating ranges of the primary user and the cognitive
radio device. Here, cognitive radio device causes unwanted
interference to the primary user (receiver) as the primary
transmitters signal could not be detected because of the
locations of devices. Cooperative sensing is proposed in the
literature for handling hidden primary user problem [23][25].
We elaborate on cooperative sensing in Section V.
C. Detecting Spread Spectrum Primary Users
For commercially available devices, there are two main
types of technologies: xed frequency and spread spectrum.
The two major spread spectrum technologies are frequency-
hoping spread-spectrum (FHSS) and direct-sequence spread-
spectrum (DSSS). Fixed frequency devices operate at a sin-
gle frequency or channel. An example to such systems is
IEEE 802.11a/g based WLAN. FHSS devices change their
operational frequencies dynamically to multiple narrowband
channels. This is known as hopping and performed according
to a sequence that is known by both transmitter and receiver.
DSSS devices are similar to FHSS devices, however, they use
a single band to spread their energy.
Primary users that use spread spectrum signaling are dif-
cult to detect as the power of the primary user is distributed
over a wide frequency range even though the actual informa-
tion bandwidth is much narrower [26]. This problem can be
partially avoided if the hopping pattern is known and perfect
synchronization to the signal can be achieved as discussed
Fig. 2. Illustration of hidden primary user problem in cognitive radio systems.
in Section II. However, it is not straightforward to design
algorithms that can do the estimation in code dimension.
D. Sensing Duration and Frequency
Primary users can claim their frequency bands anytime
while cognitive radio is operating on their bands. In order
to prevent interference to and from primary license owners,
cognitive radio should be able to identify the presence of
primary users as quickly as possible and should vacate the
band immediately. Hence, sensing methods should be able
to identify the presence of primary users within a certain
duration. This requirement poses a limit on the performance of
sensing algorithm and creates a challenge for cognitive radio
design.
Selection of sensing parameters brings about a tradeoff
between the speed (sensing time) and reliability of sensing.
Sensing frequency, i.e. how often cognitive radio should
perform spectrum sensing, is a design parameter that needs to
be chosen carefully. The optimum value depends on the capa-
bilities of cognitive radio itself and the temporal characteristics
of primary users in the environment [27]. If the statuses of
primary users are known to change slowly, sensing frequency
requirements can be relaxed. A good example for such a
scenario is the detection of TV channels. The presence of a TV
station usually does not change frequently in a geographical
area unless a new station starts broadcasting or an existing
station goes ofine. In the IEEE 802.22 draft standard (see
Section VII), for example, the sensing period is selected as
30 seconds. In addition to sensing frequency, the channel de-
tection time, channel move time and some other timing related
parameters are also dened in the standard [28]. Another
factor that affects the sensing frequency is the interference
tolerance of primary license owners. For example, when a
cognitive radio is exploiting opportunities in public safety
bands, sensing should be done as frequently as possible in
order to prevent any interference. Furthermore, cognitive radio
should immediately vacate the band if it is needed by public
safety units. The effect of sensing time on the performance
of secondary users is investigated in [29]. Optimum sensing
durations to search for an available channel and to monitor a
used channel are obtained. The goal is to maximize the av-
erage throughput of secondary users while protecting primary
" More robust to
sensing errors.
" Hidden node
problem

PU is hidden to the CR. CRs transmission will result in
interference at the PU receiver.
Cooperate with
this user!
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
CN-S2013
Proactive
Reactive
Local
Cooperative
Centralized
Distributed
Synchronous
Asynchron.
In-band
Out-of-band
Parallel
Sequential
Centralized
A Central Manager (BS or AP) collects CR
sensing data and makes a decision on channel
state, i.e. idle or busy
$ Cost of transmission sensing data?
$ What if the Central Manager fails? Single
Point of Failure.

Distributed (Decentralized)
Each CR makes decision itself.
Centralized vs. Distributed Sensing
CN-S2013
Centralized/Distributed
Cooperative Sensing
Faculty of Science
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Decision
Fusion Center
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Increased sensing reliability at the expense of increased
communication overhead
How to communicate: Common control channels (CCC)
CN-S2013
Decision Fusion: How to decide?
Faculty of Science
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Yes,
there
is PU
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
No, it is
IDLE
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Yes
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
Yes
Y
TABLE II
ALGORITHMS.
Advantages
- Simplicity
- Lower cost
ciency
Disadvantages
ciency
- Higher cost
tion
- Higher complexity
design.
No
How to decide? (DECISION FUSION LOGIC)
" AND
" OR
" MAJORITY
" K-of-N
$ Soft or Hard Decision Combining: Yes or No answers (0-1), or Received Signal
Strength
CN-S2013
Number of Cooperating Users vs.
Sensing Time
11 April 2012
Faculty of Science
IEEE Communications Magazine April 2008 37
Compared to multipath fading, shadowing
effects tend to be correlated over a much larger
distance, thereby reducing the diversity gain
achievable through short-range cooperation.
This is depicted in Fig. 4. In fact, it has been
shown that under spatially correlated shadowing,
the cooperation gain is fundamentally limited by
the distance spread of the cooperating users
[11]. This limitation has practical implications in
terms of protocol design as having fewer users
cooperate over a large distance may be more
effective than a dense sensing network confined
to a small area.
Another challenge in the implementation of
cooperative sensing is the issue of user reliabili-
ty. For instance, a single malicious user may pre-
vent a cognitive radio network from accessing a
white space by sending false reports to the band
manager. In order to deal with this issue, further
research needs to be done on the design of effi-
cient trust management systems in cognitive
radio networks.
DESIGN TRADE-OFFS
In this section we outline the major trade-offs
involved in the implementation of spectrum
sensing functionality in the cognitive radio net-
works. The system designer should balance these
trade-offs according to the application-specific
requirements, hardware cost and complexity, and
available infrastructure (e.g., to coordinate sens-
ing and access) among other considerations.
COOPERATION-PROCESSING TRADE-OFF
As outlined previously, with increasing the num-
ber of cooperating users, a target detection sen-
sitivity may be achieved by having less sensitive
detectors at the individual users. Given a certain
detector, a relaxed sensitivity requirement is
translated into a shorter sensing time and hence
less local processing. This phenomenon is depict-
ed in Fig. 5, where the sensing time of local
energy detectors, required to achieve an overall
detection sensitivity of 20 dB (with 99 percent
accuracy), is plotted as a function of the number
of cooperating users under independent Rayleigh
fading. Furthermore, communication among
users is assumed to be error-free and the chan-
nel bandwidth is set at 1 MHz.
The observation above, however, raises a nat-
ural question: how much (local) processing and
cooperation is needed, respectively, in order to
achieve a certain performance level? In particu-
lar, the cooperation overhead generally increases
with the number of cooperating users due to the
increased volume of data that needs to be report-
ed to and be (centrally) processed by the band
manager. Therefore, there exists a trade-off
between the local processing overhead and the
cooperation overhead as they both add to the
total sensing time. This trade-off may be bal-
anced by finding the optimum levels of process-
ing and cooperation, minimizing the total sensing
overhead [12].
Intuitively, the optimum number of cooperat-
ing users depends on the efficiency of the under-
lying cooperation protocol. For instance, a
simple way to collect sensing data is for the band
manager to poll the cognitive radios one by one.
However, the communication overhead associat-
ed with this method increases linearly with the
number of users. A more efficient technique has
been proposed in [13] where all sensing data is
collected simultaneously, thereby allowing a
higher cooperation level at the cost of increased
protocol complexity. Moreover, the cooperation
level should be adapted to the fading character-
istics. In particular, as the fading becomes less
severe (e.g., if there is a line of sight to the pri-
mary user), the optimum trade-off between local
processing and cooperation will be tilted more
toward processing. Informally speaking, this is
I Figure 4. Required sensitivity of individual cognitive radios to achieve an
overall detection sensitivity of 20 dB under Rayleigh fading vs. the number of
cooperating users.
Number of cooperating users
2 1
20
18
S
e
n
s
i
t
i
v
i
t
y

r
e
q
u
i
r
e
d

a
t

e
a
c
h

d
e
t
e
c
t
o
r

(
d
B
)
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
I Figure 5. Cooperation-processing trade-off under Rayleigh fading.
Number of cooperating users
2 1
10
2
10
1
S
e
n
s
i
n
g

t
i
m
e

(
m
s
)
10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
GHASEMI LAYOUT 3/24/08 2:13 PM Page 37
Amir Ghasemi and Elvino S. Sousa, Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio
Networks: Requirements,Challenges and Design Trade-offs

" Cooperation overhead generally
increases with the number of
cooperating
" Optimal number of cooperating
users

Single CR
or 5 CRs
CN-S2013
Proactive
Reactive
Local
Cooperative
Centralized
Distributed
Synchronous
Asynchron.
In-band
Out-of-band
Parallel
Sequential
Synchronous
All CRs have the same sensing schedule to sense a
channel.

$ How to synchronize?
$ Stop transmission and sense the medium.
Asynchronous
Each CR has its own schedule to sense a channel.

$ If other CRs are transmitting while this CR is
sensing, how to distinguish between SU and PU
signal.
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous
Sensing
CN-S2013
Proactive
Reactive
Local
Cooperative
Centralized
Distributed
Synchronous
Asynchron.
In-band
Out-of-band
Parallel
Sequential
In-band
CR senses the channel that it is already transmitting
- To detect if a PU appears
Out-of-band
CR senses channels other than the channel it is in

$ To find other spectrum holes
$ To find another channel to switch since a PU has
already appeared.
In-band vs. Out-of-band Sensing
CN-S2013
" Hardware requirements:
! High speed processing units (DSPs or FPGAs) performing
computationally demanding signal processing tasks with relatively low
delay.
! Operation in a wide spectrum range
" Sensing-Transmission Tradeoff
" Security: a selfish or malicious user can modify its air interface to
mimic a primary user.
Challenges of Spectrum Sensing
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
" Static spectrum access is cumbersome!
" CR facilitates unused spectrum to be used opportunistically.
" Spectrum sensing facilitates discovery of unoccupied spectrum.
" The spectrum sensing can be designed considering various
criteria at MAC and PHY layer.
" The longer is the sensing duration, generally the higher is the
sensing reliability.
" Cooperation increases sensing performance but has higher
overhead.
Summary
36
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
References
Faculty of Science
" T. Yucek and H. Arslan, A survey of spectrum sensing algorithms for cognitive
radio applications, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, vol. 11, no. 1,
pp. 116-130, 2009.

" Ghasemi, Amir, and Elvino S. Sousa. Spectrum sensing in cognitive radio
networks: requirements, challenges and design trade-offs. IEEE
Communications Magazine, 46.4 (2008): 32-39.
CN-S2013
Questions?
Faculty of Science
CN-S2013
Self-Study: Make sure you know
all the terms below
11 April 2012
Faculty of Science
" Primary User
" Secondary User
" Cognitive Radio
" Spectrum Hole
" Spectrum Sensing
" Harmful Interference
" SNR
" Cooperative Sensing
" Dynamic Spectrum Access
" Static Spectrum Access
" Spectrum Underutilization
" Sensing-transmission trade-off
" Decision fusion logic
CN-S2013
Presentation Schedule
Faculty of Science
Feb 5
Feb 12 Presentation 1: Cognitive Networks (CN)
Feb 19 Presentation 2: Routing in CR Ad Hoc Networks (RA)
Feb 26 No class
March 12 Presentation 3: Cognitive Capabilities in Non-Cognitive Networks (CC)
March 19 Presentation 4: Economics of Cognitive Radio (EC)
March 26 Presentation 5: Radio Environment Maps (REM)
April 2 Presentation 6: Security Issues in CRNs (SEC)
April 9 Presentation 7: Machine Learning for CR (ML)
April 16 Presentation 8: Distributed Spectrum Access (DA)
April 23 Presentation 9: Energy efficiency (EE) and Closing Remarks

CN-S2013
Next week
$ 2-Minute Madness Session: In two minutes present your topics
basic idea, questions, etc! Only 2 minutes.
Faculty of Science

CN S2013 SpectrumSensing

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