Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507

Available at http://www.Jofcis.com


1553-9105/ Copyright 2011 Binary Information Press
May, 2011
Hybrid Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme Using Double-Fusion in
Cognitive Radio Networks
Hong DU

, Zaixue WEI, Yu WANG, Dacheng YANG

Wireless Theories and Technologies Lab, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

Abstract
In cognitive radio networks, cognitive users can be coordinated to perform cooperative spectrum sensing so as to detect the
primary user more accurately. In this paper, a hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing method is investigated to improve the
sensing performance by exploiting double-fusion approach. In special, data fusion and decision fusion are both studied. For
the first stage, cognitive users send their energy to the fusion center with data fusion in each cognitive cell. For the second
stage, the fusion center in each cognitive cell communicates the decision with each other and makes the final decision by
using decision fusion. In addition, we derive the optimal number of cognitive users and cells in the proposed scheme.
Numerical results show that the sensing performance is improved significantly as opposed to conventional cooperative
spectrum sensing with single fusion.
Keywords: Cognitive Radio; Hybrid Cooperative Spectrum Sensing; Double-fusion; Data Fusion; Decision Fusion
1. Introduction
In order to tackle the problem with underutilization of spectrum, cognitive radio (CR) arises to be a
tempting solution to the spectral congestion problem by introducing opportunistic usage of the frequency
bands that are not heavily occupied by licensed users [1]. In cognitive radio networks, primary users have
higher priority rights on the usage of a specific part of the spectrum. Cognitive users, which have lower
priority, exploit this spectrum in such a way that they do not cause interference to primary users. Therefore,
cognitive users need to sense the spectrum reliably to check whether it is being used by a primary user and
change the radio parameters to exploit the unused part of the spectrum [2].
Due to the fading and shadowing effects, the performance for local sensing will be degraded. Therefore,
cooperative spectrum sensing is proposed as a solution to problem that arises in spectrum sensing.
Cooperative sensing decreases the probabilities of miss-detection and false alarm considerably. In addition,
cooperation can solve hidden primary user problem and it can decrease sensing time.
Recently, the research on cooperative sensing mainly focus on decision fusion scheme in centralized
cognitive radio networks [3-4]. In particular, an optimal fusion strategy based cooperative spectrum sensing
scheme in a cognitive radio network is investigated and analyzed in [5-6]. Besides, there are multiple
fusions approaches in cooperative spectrum sensing, such as in [7] both data fusion and decision fusion for

Corresponding author.
Email addresses: duhong929@gmail.com (Hong DU).
1501 H. Du et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507

multiple slots and multiple cognitive radio users are illustrated. The optimal sensing time for spectrum
sensing is observed on tradeoff between sensing and throughput. In [8], the energy fusion and decision
fusion is proposed to decrease the reporting errors introduced by the fading channels. However, the fusion
scheme almost adopted in centralized or decentralized network topology.
In this paper, we consider a hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing method by using double-fusion to
improve the sensing performance. In the proposed approach, base station (BS) in cognitive cell is
considered as the fusion center, which collects the sensing results from all the users with data fusion. And
then, BS forwards its decision to each other by using decision fusion. Moreover, we derive the sensing
performance and the optimal number of cognitive users and cells in the hybrid cooperative spectrum
sensing scheme.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The system model of hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing
approach is described in Section 2. Section 3 discusses the problem optimization of the proposed scheme
based on double-fusion. Specifically, data fusion and decision fusion are presented, respectively. The
numerical results are shown and analyzed in Section 4. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
2. System Model
In cognitive radio networks, energy detection is explored widely for spectrum sensing owing to its low
compute complexity. Therefore, energy detection is also adopted in this paper. For local sensing, CR user
has to distinguish between absence (H
0
) and presence (H
1
) of primary user. Consider N and M are denoted
as the number of CR users and samples, respectively. Then the observed energy value of the jth user is
given as follows:
2
0
1
2
1
1
, H
( ) , H
M
ji
i
j
M
ji ji
i
n
Y
s n
=
=

=

+

(1)
where s
ji
and n
ji
, 1<j<N, 1<i<M, denote the received primary signal and white noise at the ith sample of the
jth CR user, respectively; we assume that the noise at each sample is Additive White Gaussian Noise
(AWGN).
As indicated before, the observed signal consists of possible primary signal and additive noise. To
facilitate our discussion, we assume that the observed signal is normalized with respect to the standard
deviation of the noise.
If primary signal is absent,
j
Y follows a central chi-square distribution with M degrees of freedom;
Otherwise,
j
Y follows a non-central chi-square distribution with M degrees of freedom and a non-centrality
parameter
j
M as in (2), Where
j
is denoted the instantaneous signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the jth CR
user.

j
Y

1
2
0
2
H ), (
H ,
j M
M
M

(2)
j
Y are assumed independent for a given hypothesis. For a large M,
j
Y approximates the following Gaussian
distribution according to the Central Limit Theorem,

j
Y
( )
( )

+ +
1
0
H , ) 2 1 ( 2 ), 1 (
H , 2 ,

j j
M M N
M M N

(3)
H. Du et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507 1502

Fig.1 illustrates the system model of hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing. In special, there are one
primary system and three cognitive radio cells. Each cognitive cell is composed of one base station and N
CR users. In each CR cell, CR users perform energy detection for local sensing and send their local energy
to the BS with data fusion. Then, decision fusion is explored between BSs in different cognitive cells, final
decision of H
0
and H
1
will depend on double-fusion.

Fig. 1 Hybrid Cooperative Spectrum Sensing using Double-fusion in Cognitive Radio Networks
For the first stage, users of each CR cell sense the primary users spectrum by using data fusion
independently, so each CR user will either decide 0 or 1 depending upon the energy received, where 0
denotes absence of primary user, and 1 denotes the presence of primary user. CR
j
sends its energy Y
j
and
decision d
j
to the BS as shown with the blue line in Fig.1, according to data fusion approach, the decision D
j
of BS
j
is obtained as follows.

) , (
j j j
Y d f D =
(4)
For the second stage, decision fusion is exploited in decentralized cooperative sensing mode, BS
communicates its decision with each other as shown for the red line in Fig.1. According to the decision
fusion scheme, each BS makes the final decision D
final
for the primary system.
) .... , (
2 1 j final
D D D g D =
(5)
3. The Hybrid Cooperative Spectrum Sensing
3.1. Data Fusion
For data fusion scheme, normalized energies from different CR users are summed with weights and
decision is based on the weighted summation. Denote the weight coefficient corresponding to the jth CR
user to be
j
, and then the weighted summation is given by

=
=
N
j
j j
Y Y
1
(6)
We assume that
j
Y and
j
are independent, and then Y is Gaussian with
Y

+ +

= =
= =
1
1
2
j
1
j
0
1
2
j
1
j
) 2 1 ( 2 , ) 1 (
2 ,

H M M N
H M M N
N
j
j
N
j
j
N
j
N
j




(7)
1503 H. Du et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507

Let be the decision threshold, then P
f
=Pr(Y> |H
0
) and P
d
=Pr(Y> |H
1
) represent the false alarm
probability and detection probability, respectively. From (7), it can be shown that

=
=
N
j
j
N
j
j
f
M
M
Q P
1
2
1
2

(8)
and
( )
( )

+
+
=

=
=
N
j
j j
N
j
j j
d
M
M
Q P
1
2
1
2 1 2
1


(9)
where

+
=
x
t
dt e x Q
2
2
1
2
) (

.
For the data fusion, we apply equal gain combination (EGC) scheme here with the corresponding weight
coefficients,
N
N
J
EGC
= j 1 ,
1

(10)
Owing to the primary signal power received by CR users is usually very low, i.e. 1 <<
j
;
therefore, 1 ) 2 1 (
1
2
+

=
N
j
j j
. Then, the detection probability can be can be evaluated as

=
M
N M
Q P
d
2

(11)
3.2. Decision Fusion
For cooperative spectrum sensing, decision rules are usually divided into OR Rule, AND Rule and
Majority Rule, respectively. In addition, Optimal Decision Fusion Rule has also been proposed in [9].
In the following, we will present the principal of decision rules mentioned above. Let I
i
be the binary
decision from the ith base station, where I
i
={0,1} for i=1,K.
1) Logic-OR Rule:
OR rule is a simple decision rule described as follows: If one of the decisions says that there is a
primary user, then the final decision declares that there is a primary user. Mathematically, define

=
=
K
i 1
i
I ,
if 1, then the primary user is present; otherwise, there is no primary user.
2) Logic-AND Rule:
AND rule works as follows: if all decisions say that there is a primary user, then the final decision
declares that there is a primary user. Mathematically, define

=
=
K
i 1
i
I , if =K, then the primary user is
present; otherwise, there is no primary user.
3) Majority Rule:
Another decision rule is based on majority of the individual decisions. If half of the decisions or more
say that there is a primary user, then the final decision declares that there is a primary user. Mathematically,
H. Du et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507 1504

define

=
=
K
i 1
i
I , if K/2, the primary user is declared to be present; otherwise, there is no primary user.
4) Optimal Decision Fusion Rule:
The optimal decision fusion rule is the Chair-Varshney fusion rule, which is a threshold test of the
following statistic:

=
+

+ =
K
i
H P
H P
1
0
1
i
f
i
d
i
i
f
i
d
i 0
) (
) (
log
P 1
P - 1
)log I - (1
P
P
log I (12)
If
0
0, then the primary user is present; otherwise, there is no primary user. P(H
1
) and P(H
0
) are
denoted the probability of primary users present and absence state.
i
f
P and
i
d
P express the false alarm
and detection probability for the local spectrum sensing.
As indicated before, the Optimal Decision Fusion rule needs the prior probability of primary user, it is
not appropriate for application in fact. OR rule is also not suited for the proposed hybrid cooperative
sensing. If only one cognitive radio base station declares that the present of primary user, the decision in
the hybrid cooperative sensing will not be accuracy. Therefore, we take AND rule for the decision fusion
of hybrid cooperative sensing scheme. Let Q
f
and Q
d
denote false alarm probability and detection
probability of the cooperative sensing with AND rule, respectively.

=
=
K
i
i
f f
P Q
1
(13)

=
=
K
i
i
d d
P Q
1
(14)

3.3. Optimization in Double Fusion Scheme
In the hybrid cooperative sensing, we explore the data fusion based on equal gain combination for the
cognitive users. Besides, the final decision can be obtained by using the decision fusion based on AND
rule.
In order to obtain the sensing performance of hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing approach, we
combine the detection performance of data fusion and decision fusion scheme. Specifically, we substitute
(8) and (9) into (13) and (14), respectively. Hence, the sensing performance of the hybrid cooperative
spectrum sensing can be evaluated as

i
K
i
N
j
j
N
j
j
f
M
M
Q Q

=
=
=

=
1
1
2
1
2

(15)


( )
( )
i
K
i
N
j
j j
N
j
j j
d
M
M
Q Q

=
=
=

+
+
=
1
1
2
1
2 1 2
1


(16)

In the hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing, a problem will be occurred that how many users in a
cognitive cell and how many cognitive radio cells will obtain the best sensing performance. Here we give
the discussion of problem formulation for the purpose of maximizing the detection probability which
1505 H. Du et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507

subject to false alarm probability is lower than 0.1.

1 . 0 Q .
) , ( Q max
f
d
K N,
t s
K N
(17)
According to the subject condition in (17), by combining (8), (10) and (13), we can derive that
1 . 0
2
1
1
2
1

=
=
=
i
K
i
N
j
j
N
j
j
f
M
M
Q Q

(18)
Due to the monotone decreasing of Q function, by substituting (10) into (18), we can derive (18) as

) 1 . 0 (
2
1 K
Q
M
N M

(19)
Then
) 1 . 0 (
2
1 K
Q
M M
N



(20)
In order to maximize the detection probability in (17), due to the monotone decreasing of Q function, we
need to minimize the argument of Q function in (16) as following,
( )
( )

+
+

=
=
N
j
j j
N
j
j j
M
M
1
2
1
2 1 2
1
min


=
( )
( )

+
+

=
=
N
j
j
N
j
j
M
M N
1
1
2 1 2
1
min

(21)
Here we assumed that 1 <<
j
; Therefore, we can get 1 ) 2 1 (
1
+

=
N
j
j
. Then (21) turns to be

2
2
min
2
min
MN
M MW
MN N
(22)
We can see that, the larger N, the smaller value in expression (22), the higher detection probability in
(17). Then we consider the subject condition of N, when inequality turns to equality in (20), the maximum
value of N can be obtained. Therefore, the relationship between the number of cognitive radio users N and
number of cognitive radio cells K can be derived as follows.
2
1
) 1 . 0 (
2

=
K
Q
M M
N

(23)

4. Simulation Results and Analysis
In this section, we resort to extensive simulations to study the performance of the proposed scheme, as
compared to the conventional scheme. In the following simulations, we firstly set the number of cognitive
radio cells to be K=3, and the number of users in each cell to be N= 6. Assume the cognitive user's average
SNR is at =15dB. We study the sensing performance of a cognitive radio network with the above system
parameters by using the proposed algorithm.
Fig.2 shows receiver operating characteristic (ROC) performance of hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing
with double fusion, data fusion and decision fusion, respectively. It can be seen from Fig.2 that compared to
the data fusion and decision fusion, the hybrid cooperative sensing by using double fusion has the better
H. Du et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507 1506

sensing performance. When the false alarm probability is 0.1, the detection probability P
d
of double fusion
scheme could achieve at 0.92, while it is less than 0.8 and 0.33 with data fusion and decision fusion,
respectively.

Fig. 2 ROC of Cooperative Spectrum Sensing with Different Fusion Scheme
In order to investigate the impact of the number of cognitive cells and users in the proposed scheme, we
assume that false alarm probability is set to be 0.1. Fig.3 (a) and Fig.3 (b) present the sensing performance of
double-fusion approach with different number of users and cells, respectively.

(a) With Different Number of Users When K=3 (b) With Different Number of Cells When N=10
Fig. 3 Detection Probability Versus SNR in Double-fusion Scheme
Fig.3 (a) displays the influence from the number of cognitive users N in double-fusion scheme when the
number of cognitive cell K is set to be 3. It can be seen that the larger number of cognitive users send their
sensing results by using data fusion, the higher detection probability can be obtained. The presented approach
also has the better sensing performance in lower SNR environment.
Besides, we assume that the fixed number of cognitive user N=10 in each cognitive cell. Fig.3 (b) shows
that the impact from the number of cognitive cell in double fusion scheme. The result reveals that with
increasing number of cognitive radio cell, fusion center in each cognitive cell exchanges the decision with
each other more sufficiently. When the SNR is -15dB, the detection probability of double-fusion scheme
could nearly achieve at 0.96. When the SNR is lower than -15dB, the larger number of cognitive radio cell
1507 H. Du et al. /Journal of Computational Information Systems 7:5 (2011) 1500-1507

also could has the better sensing performance.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, we have proposed a hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing scheme by using double-fusion. We
divided the whole spectrum sensing procedure into two stages with data fusion and decision fusion. We
have derived the optimal number of cognitive radio users and cells while the detection probability is
maximized. Numerical simulations have been presented that double-fusion approach will have higher
detection probability compared to conventional single fusion in cooperative spectrum sensing.
Acknowledgement
This work is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
References
[1] Federal Communications Commission. Spectrum policy task force report, FCC 02-155, Nov. 2002.
[2] S. Haykin. Cognitive radio: Brain-empowered wireless communications. IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun.,
23(2):201220, 2005.
[3] Edward C. Y. Peh, Ying-Chang Liang, Yong Liang Guan and Yonghong Zeng. Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in
Cognitive Radio Networks with Weighted Decision Fusion Scheme. In Proceedings of the Vehicular Technology
Conference (VTC 2010-Spring), pages 1-5, 2010 .
[4] Behzad Kasiri and Jun Cai. Effects of Correlated Shadowing on Soft Decision Fusion in Cooperative Spectrum
Sensing, In Proceedings of the INFOCOM IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops
(INFOCOM-2010), pages 1- 6, 2010.
[5] Bin Shen, Taiping Cui, Kyungsup Kwak, Chengshi Zhao, Zheng Zhou. An Optimal Soft Fusion Scheme for
Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Network. In Proceedings of the Wireless Communications and
Networking Conference (WCNC-2009) , pages 1-5, 2009.
[6] Bin Shen, Kyungsup Kwak, Zhiquan Bai. Optimal Linear Soft Fusion Schemes for Cooperative Sensing in
Cognitive Radio Networks. In Proceedings of the Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM-2009),
pages 1-6, 2009.
[7] Y-C Liang, Y. Zeng, E. C. Y. Peh, et al.. Sensing-throughput tradeoff for cognitive radio networks. IEEE Trans.
Wireless Commun, 7: 1326-1337, 2008.
[8] Chunhua Sun, Wei Zhang, and Khaled Ben Letaief. Cluster-Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive
Radio Systems. In Proceedings of the International Communications Conference (ICC-2007), pages 2511-2515,
2007.
[9] Z. Chair and P. K. Varshney. Optimal data fusion in multiple sensor detection systems. IEEE Trans. Aerospace
Elect. Syst.,2(1):98-101, 1986.