Received: 7 January 2020 Revised: 2 December 2020 Accepted: 11 January 2021

DOI: 10.1002/dac.4748

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Spectrum sensing challenges & their solutions in cognitive

radio based vehicular networks

Mohammad Asif Hossain1 | Rafidah Md Noor1,2 | Saaidal Razalli Azzuhri1 |

Muhammad Reza Z'aba1 | Ismail Ahmedy1 | Kok-Lim Alvin Yau3 |
Christopher Chembe4

1
Faculty of Computer Science and
Information Technology, University of
Summary
Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) has been established to mitigate road
2
Centre for Mobile Cloud Computing collisions and traffic congestion and provide infotainment facilities to users.
Research, University of Malaysia, Kuala
Allocated channels to VANET, which is the DSRC (Dedicated Short-Range
Lumpur, Malaysia
3
School of Science and Technology,
Communication), are not adequate for the full implementation of VANET.
Sunway University, Subang Jaya, Cognitive radio (CR) can be used to alleviate this issue. CR is a programmable
Selangor, Malaysia and intelligent radio system capable of reaching various frequency ranges. CR
4
Information Communication
needs to conduct spectrum sensing to get these bands. A vehicle fitted with a
Technology, National Institute of Public
Administration, Lusaka, Zambia CR can sense the licensed spectrum to locate the vacant spectrum (which is
not used by any licensed user) when the DSRC is wholly occupied. Compared
Correspondence
to other CR networks, VANET faces specific additional difficulties related to
Rafidah Md Noor, Faculty of Computer
Science and Information Technology, spectrum sensing, such as periodic topological shifts due to high-speed mobil-
Centre for Mobile Cloud Computing ity, multipath fading and shadowing issues, and heterogeneous quality of ser-
Research, University of Malaya. Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia.
vice (QoS) specifications. This paper explains these problems in depth. All the
Email: fidah@um.edu.my problems and issues were explored from the perspective of the CR focused on
VANET. Probable ideas and directions to overcome these problems have also
Funding information
Partnership grant under between been presented. We have provided a conceptual framework for spectrum sens-
University of Malaya and Sunway ing. The framework resolves a variety of issues and concerns that are discussed
University., Grant/Award Number: Grant
in the paper. It gives much better results than conventional sensing
RK004-2017 and Grant CR-UM-SST-DCIS-
2018-01; University of Malaya and Sunway techniques.
University, Grant/Award Numbers:
CR-UM-SST-DCIS-2018-01, RK004-2017 KEYWORDS
cognitive radio, high-speed mobility, machine learning, multipath fading, shadowing, spectrum
sensing, VANET

1 | INTRODUCTION

Vehicle ad hoc network (VANET) has been developed to enhance road safety and reduce traffic jams. Another applica-
tion of VANET is the offering of infotainment content to users. A massive amount of data sharing is required for the
implementation of VANET. As per Intel, a single smart car will share about four terabytes of data every day soon.1 The
IEEE 802.11p protocol, also known as the dedicated short-range communication (DSRC), is allocated for VANET
implementation. The DSRC has a bandwidth of 75 MHz in the frequency spectrum of 5.85–5.925 GHz. However, this
spectrum is insufficient to bear such a large volume of data sharing.2 The vast additional spectrum is then needed to

Int J Commun Syst. 2021;e4748. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/dac © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1 of 23
https://doi.org/10.1002/dac.4748
2 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

facilitate such high-volume data exchange. But the lack of spectrum has been a significant challenge to the effective
implementation of VANET.
On the other side, there are many frequency bands (e.g., TV or military radio bands) underutilized and make the
bands idle and inactive. The idle spectrum can be used by secondary users (SUs; rather than licensed users of such spec-
trums). This would increase the quality of the use of spectrum and address the issue of spectrum scarcity. This is the
cognitive radio (CR) concept introduced by Mitola and Maguire.3 It will solve the VANET spectrum scarcity problem.
Together, thus, CR and VANET or CR-VANET will play a crucial role in maintaining road safety, reducing traffic con-
gestion, and delivering infotainment without spectrum shortage. These are fundamental specifications for the introduc-
tion of next-generation transport systems.
The unlicensed user (or SU or CR user) in the CR system scans for any idle or inactive licensed spectrum owned by
licensed users (or primary users, PUs). Upon discovering a free spectrum, the SU will use it but must ensure that it does
not interfere with any PU. SU must therefore make the spectrum usable as another PU wishes to use the same spec-
trum. The SU must reduce its transmitting capacity not to impact any surrounding PU in its operations.4
Spectrum sensing (SS) is one of the main components of the CR system. SS is the mechanism by which the SU
or the CR user senses the spectrum whether a PU occupies it or not. If it notices that no PU uses that spectrum, SU
will use it opportunistically only under certain conditions. There are many techniques for conducting SS, such as
energy detection, cyclostationary function detection, matched filter detection, and centralized and decentralized
detection. In VANET, the recipient of the CR is usually a vehicle. Thanks to its high-speed design, the vehicle
encounters a range of obstacles in the SS. It faces several difficulties such as dynamic shifts in the radio environ-
ment, heterogeneous QoS (quality of service) specifications, hidden node issues, shadowing, diffraction, and multiple
PU activity models.
In VANET, the vehicle needs to sense the spectrum very quickly and precisely. Otherwise, vehicles in VANET
would not connect smoothly or with the network within the appropriate timeframe. Therefore, the benefits of VANET
cannot be entirely accomplished. Suitable sensing is necessary to achieve the maximum benefits of CR-VANET. There
are many parameters present in the literature that can be used to calculate the SS's efficiency, such as the probability of
probability, the probability of false alarm and misdetection, sensing time versus throughput, and the value of the SNR
(signal-to-noise ratio).
This paper presents a detailed description of SS techniques used in CR-VANET with their taxonomy. The article also
deals with the challenges faced by the CR users from the CR-VANET perspective.
Some of the contributions of this paper are given below:

• Several challenges of SS, especially faced in the VANET scenario, are presented.
• Solutions regarding those challenges or issues have been discussed.
• Future research directions in this field have been described.
• A conceptual framework for SS and routing has been proposed.

The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 introduced the idea of CR-VANET and the SS. Section 2 presents
some related works, while Section 3 describes the VANET, CR, and SS. Section 3.3.2 discusses the challenges
faced by the VANET's CR users while performing the SS. Section 3.3.3 describes some solutions to those
challenges. Section 4 proposes a framework for the SS and routing for the CR-VANET. Finally, Section 5
concludes the paper.

2 | R E LA T E D WOR KS

There are lots of works in CR that have been found in literature since its emergence. Alias and Ragesh5 presented a
brief survey on CR. They discussed the basic concepts of CR, taxonomies, challenges, and various other issues. Wang
and Liu6 described the CR cycle in detail. It has four phases, namely, SS, analysis, reasoning, and adaptation. Other
reviews of CR can be found in Wang et al.7 and Zheng et al.8 Several SS techniques were surveyed in Pandit and Singh9
and Sun et al.10 Yücek and Arslan11 described some challenging issues of SS and corresponding methods that are used
to mitigate those challenges.
Arjoune and Kaabouch12 provided a comprehensive survey on SS from its development to its current states with
future challenges. They described the pros and cons of various types of SS techniques and the challenges associated
HOSSAIN ET AL. 3 of 23

with their implementation. They also provided the CR network's real application by taking the TV white spaces as the
case study. They elaborated on SS's in-depth concept, compressive sensing, and usage of machine learning in SS.
Hossain et al.13 surveyed several aspects of CR from a VANET perspective. They discussed various wireless access
standards of VANET, an overview of CR, and the integration of CR with VANET. The authors mainly focused on the
applications of different machine learnings in CR-based VANET. They described how machine learning algorithms
could be used to address several issues of CR-VANET, such as ensuring road safety and congestion reduction, security
and privacy enhancement, and improving routing and infotainment.
In Akyildiz et al.14 cooperative SS (CSS) was surveyed. In that article, various issues of CSS, cooperative gain, and
cooperation overhead were addressed. They elaborately discussed SS factors, such as sensing time and delay, channel
impairments, energy efficiency, cooperation efficiency, mobility, security, and wideband SS issues.
Most of the articles mentioned above focused on SS's fundamental concepts and its several general CR network
challenges. VANET was not considered in their discussion. There are very few articles where the challenges of CR in
the VANET scenario have been discussed. For example, Chembe et al.15 reviewed several challenges of SS in the
CR-VANET system. They examined the benefits of CR in the VANET perspective and discussed various SS techniques,
challenges associated with SS in CR-VANET. However, few more challenges were absent in that article, and solutions
were not fully described.
This paper focuses on the SS techniques, associated problems, and challenges, especially for the VANET scenario,
and their solutions. Some future research directions also have been presented.

3 | OVERVIEW OF VANET, CR, AND SS

In this subsection, we are going to present the basic overview of VANET and CR. After that, the details of SS will be
given.

3.1 | VANET

VANET provides several services to the users, such as road safety, reduced traffic jams, comfort, and entertainment.
VANET is similar to a mobile ad hoc network (MANET). However, it differs in the high speed of the vehicles. It is origi-
nated from the intelligent transportation system (ITS) and wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE).16 In
VANET, vehicles are assembled with sensors, a global positioning system (GPS), entertainment systems, and wireless
access standards. A vehicle senses the surrounding environment and its content. For example, it senses obstacles and
objects ahead (e.g., front vehicles) using sensors to prevent a sudden collision. It also uses real-time information on road
conditions, such as traffic entertainment and other social applications to the uses using onboard wireless connectivity
with the network.
Several types of communication can be found in VANET. These communications are categorized into the following
types17–19 (Table 1), and they are illustrated in Figure 1.
Vehicles' high-speed mobility makes the VANET topology very dynamic. VANET is also very dynamic because of
its varied range of applications and diverse QoS requirements. Some applications need instant data transmission,
for example, to exchange road safety messages. These applications need very low latency and very high reliability.
Simultaneously, some applications need to exchange a vast amount of data but not necessarily instant, for example, for
the infotainment applications. Here, a higher throughput requirement gets more priority than low latency or higher
reliability.20
The wireless standard for VANET is DSRC, which is used for short-range communication, such as for V2V and V2R
transmission and other communications mentioned above.
Other possible and potential access techniques for VANETs are as follows:

• Wi-Fi
• Visible light communication (VLC)
• LTE and device-to-device (D2D)
• Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications
• 5G communication
4 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

TABLE 1 Various types of communications in VANET

No. Communications in VANET Description

a Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication
b Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) or infrastructure-to-vehicle
(I2V) communication and vehicle-to-RSU (V2R)
communication
c Infrastructure-to-infrastructure (I2I) communication
d Vehicle-to-person or vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P)
communication:
e Vehicle-to-person or vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P)
communication:
f Vehicle-to-barrier (V2B) communication
g Vehicle-to-cloud (V2C) communication
It is the communication between the vehicle without the help of
any network infrastructure. It is generally used for collision
control and congestion avoidance to improve vehicular safety.
Here, vehicles communicate with the network component or the
infrastructure. This communication can be vehicles to BTS (base
transceiver station) or vice versa, or between vehicles and
roadside units (RSU). Here, specific traffic information, such as
the location, identification, and speed restriction (e.g., driving
speed is more than the speed limit) of vehicles, are
communicated. This is also used for infotainment purposes.
In this communication, data are exchanged between network
infrastructures, such as BTS and RSU. This is used for live traffic
updates and high-priority information transmission.
It is a communication between vehicles and pedestrians for their
mutual safety on roads.
Here, communication takes between vehicles and pedestrians to
ensure their safety on roads.
In this communication, vehicles are exchanging data with roadside
barriers. It is used to alleviate run-off-road crashes. To be noted
here, run-off-crashes cause more than half of the total roadside
crash fatalities.
When RSU exchanges information with the base station via the
cloud, the communication is known as V2C. It is used for
analyzing data, making a decision and to predict traffic.

FIGURE 1 Basic architecture of VANET

3.2 | Cognitive radio

Mitola and Maguire3 first conceptualized CR. CR is an intelligent wireless system that can learn and adapt to the sur-
rounding radio environment. The limited resource of the spectrum is effectively utilized in CR. CR's main idea is to
ensure the maximum usage of the scarce frequency bands opportunistically by adjusting the transmission parameters
acquired from the surrounding environment. CR's learning process includes obtaining communication parameters
information and finding any vacant channel by sensing the surrounded wireless environment.21
Spectrum hole, an essential concept of CR, is a vacant band of frequencies allocated to the authorized and the
licensed users (PUs). It might happen that at a particular place and time, this band may not be occupied by PU. In CR,
the CR users or SUs use unlicensed bands. However, they can use those temporary vacant licensed bands that are not
HOSSAIN ET AL. 5 of 23

occupied by any PU. The SUs must make available those unused bands whenever any PU tries to get it back. SUs sense
the spectrum holes or vacant channel, select the best available one, coordinate with other SUs and the spectrum condi-
tion, and release the channel when PUs reclaim it (this is known as “spectrum mobility”). Then, the SU must sense for
other vacant channels, and the process goes on. This process is known as the CR cycle, and it has four steps. They are
as follows:

1. Spectrum sensing: in this stage, channel selection and vacant primary spectrum identification are made.
2. Spectrum analysis and decision: after gaining the vacant channel information, the best frequency band is selected
based on interference, path loss, wireless link error, and link-layer delay.
3. Spectrum sharing is the management of spectrum distribution among CR users by maintaining QoS.
4. Spectrum mobility: to ensure continuous communication, the SU must move from one frequency band to another
unused band. This spectrum switching is known as spectrum mobility.

3.3 | Spectrum sensing

SS is a means of collecting knowledge regarding spectrum occupancy at a given place, period, and frequency by perceiv-
ing the local wireless setting. SS's fundamental goal is to pick the free channel and the PU's occupancy of that channel.
There are a variety of ways to do SS.22 Each of these techniques has its features, advantages, and drawbacks. From the
taxonomy shown in Figure 2, we can say that there are mainly three types of SS.14,22

3.3.1 | Non-cooperative SS

Non-cooperative SS is the type of SS where individual SS has been performed. That means individual SU or CR users
sense the spectrum and take spectrum decisions on their own. There are various detection techniques under this type
of SS. They are listed below:

FIGURE 2 Taxonomy of the types of SS techniques

6 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

i. Energy detection (ED)

ii. Cyclostationary feature detection (CFD) sensing technique
iii. Matched filter detection (MFD) sensing technique
iv. Other Sensing Methods (e.g., Eigenvalue-based Detection [EBD] and compressed sensing [CS])
v. Integrated individual Techniques for SS

3.3.2 | CSS decision for VANET

In CSS, several CR users or SUs involve themselves in the SS for better performance. That means instead of making
their individual decision, they cooperate to take optimal decisions.14 CSS's central concept is to improve sensing perfor-
mance by exploiting the spatial diversity and temporal diversity.14 This sensing technique is used to solve hidden node
problems, the uncertainty of noise, multipath fading, shadowing, and so forth.
Based on how CR users share the sensing data among themselves, CSS can be categorized into four: centralized,
distributed, relay-assisted, and external sensing.11,14 They are as follows:

i. Centralized CSS
ii. Distributed CSS
iii. Relay-assisted CSS
iv. External CSS

3.3.3 | Interference-based SS

FCC (Federal Communications Commission) set a threshold value of interference for the PUs. The SUs are allowed to
use the transmission power provided that it (in addition to the noise power) will not go beyond that threshold value of
interference temperature level.23 However, this SS's main drawback is that it is tough to measure the real-life interfer-
ence temperature. This complexity of SS creates a very challenging job in the VANET environment. This SS has not
fully explored in the literature, and therefore, further comprehensive research is much needed in this field.

4 | CHALLENGES IN SS ISSUE I N C R-VANET

VANET environment can be categorized into three, namely, urban, suburban, and highway areas. These categories are
based on the vehicle's speed, fading, and traffic density. In general, a vehicle moves with 30–40 m/s on a highway,
25 m/s in a suburban area, and 15 m/s in a congested urban area. Though the vehicles' speed is low in the urban area,
the degree of fading, traffic density, and the obstacle is very high. Due to several high-rise buildings, the vehicles face
various challenges and experience severe fading conditions. Besides this, it also creates a hidden PU problem for
CR-VANET. The spectrum scarcity issues are more severe in urban areas.
On the other hand, on the highway, fading and traffic density are low, but their speed is very high. In suburban
areas, traffic density is light, but speed and fading are medium to high. Figure 3 shows the comparative characteristics
of various vehicular environments. Therefore, it can be said that the parameters such as speed, fading, and traffic den-
sity vary due to the area type. So the challenges for all the cases are not the same.
SS techniques must be different for a different environment, for example, for highway, fast SS detection techniques
such as ED. In an urban area where fading is very high, ED is not suitable. Here, CFD, CS, or MFD will be more appro-
priate. For suburban, CFD or MFD is the best choice.24 CSS is very suitable for the urban area, though high traffic
intensity increases the overhead. On the other hand, CSS is not ideal in the highway context due to the vehicles' low
density and high-speed mobility.
In summary, due to the variances of the network environment and heterogeneous spectrum requirements, the same
SS cannot be used in all the scenarios. Choosing the most appropriate SS technique creates another level of challenge.
The following sub-sections discuss those issues and challenges in detail.
The SU uses SS to find out the vacant spectrum. The performance of CR users or SUs depends on the quality
of the SS. Optimal SS means it has to be fast, accurate, robust to interference and noise, non-complex, and
HOSSAIN ET AL. 7 of 23

F I G U R E 3 Characteristics of various vehicular environments

(based on Riyahi et al.24)

energy-efficient.15 However, there are many challenges to achieve such good SS. These challenges are listed in Figure 4
and discussed below.

4.1 | Effect of vehicle speed and direction on SS in VANET

The main challenge of SS in VANET is the high-speed mobility of the vehicles. In general, on a congested road, a
vehicle's average speed is around 15 m/s, and in non-congested roads or on the highway, it is about 40 m/s or more.
Due to this speed, the vehicle moves very fast from one radio environment to another. There is a vast difference
between the PU traffic pattern in one base station with another. Therefore, this leads to a very challenging situation for
the proper SS. SS should be done very fast and has to consider several factors described in the coming descriptions.
Let us consider the following:
sensing period = St.
transmission period = Tt.
PU idle time TPUOFF must follow:

T PUOFF ≥ St + T t : ð1Þ

F I G U R E 4 Taxonomy of the challenges in spectrum sensing in

CR-VANET perspective
8 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

FIGURE 5 Hidden PU problem due to the tall building

Here, St and Tt depend on the velocity of the vehicle v and the coverage area of the base station R. Following condi-
tion must be followed:

vðSt + T t Þ < R: ð2Þ

From Equation 2, we can say that if v is very high, then a vehicle will have minimal time for sensing and transmis-
sion. If St is very low, there is a considerable probability of false detection (the probability in which a SU mistakenly
detects PU's presence, but in reality, there is no PU presents at that time.), which degrades the overall performance. On
the other hand, if St is long, sensing performance will be better. Still, the transmission time Tt will be lower (less time
will be available for the transmission), reducing the network throughput (due to the network performance). Therefore,
there is a trade-off between St and Tt. As a vehicle moves very fast from one PU region to another PU region due to its
high-speed, St must be shorter.
The vehicles' high-speed and direction lead to another negative phenomenon known as the Doppler shift effect.
Due to this effect, vehicles would face signal fading and shadowing problems. The vehicles' rapid movements also result
in the unavailability of channel state information (CSI) and PU signal characteristics to the vehicles.

4.2 | Effect of multipath fading on sensing the performance

When a signal comes to the receiver from two or more paths, then the phenomenon is known as multipath fading
or small-scale fading. This happens due to high-rise buildings, mountains, reflection, and so forth. Doppler shift also
causes this problem. This fading distorts the receiving radio signal.25 When a vehicle moves on the road, it faces several
distortions (especially in the urban area) such as high-rise buildings, reflective elements, and other vehicles.
These affect the SS of vehicles. These obstacles scatter the original PU signal. This situation affects the sensing results.
It creates false negative or some false positive problems.
Multipath fading can be modeled as a random process of probabilistic process. Some of the significant propagation
models are briefly described in Table 2.
Rayleigh fading does not depend on the LOS signals; it is a handy and mostly used propagation model for the
CR-VANET scenario. The model is used to model the signal between PUs and the CR vehicles in the CR-VANET
environment, where it faces several multipath fading. Where the LOS signal is weaker than the scattered signals,
Rayleigh models perform better than the Rician model. Moreover, the K factor in Rician and Weibull models is tough
to measure directly (as it is a time-varying value and depends on the surrounded radio environment). Weibull model is
not well studied in the CR-VANET perspective. However, in a few studies, it was shown that it performs better than
other models, especially in the energy detection method. Nevertheless, it is challenging to choose the most suitable
propagation model and the parameters' optimum values. Another point is that these methods still need further research
for the CR-VANET environment.
HOSSAIN ET AL. 9 of 23

TABLE 2 Propagation models used in CR-VANET

Propagation
model Description Probability distribution function (PDF) Ref.
Rayleigh This model is used when (r
r  Gómez-Déniz
exp − 2
model many radio environment pray ðr Þ = σ 2 2σ , for r ≥ 0 ð3Þ and Gómez-Déniz26
obstacles scatter the signal 0, otherwise
before it arrives at the
receiver. There is no r: envelope amplitude of the received signal
leading propagation along σ 2 : mean power of the multipath signal
a LOS (line of sight)
between the transmitter
and receiver.
Rician model This model is used when one   ( sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi) Wongtrairat and
ðK + 1Þ r ðK + 1Þ rK ðK + 1Þ Supnithi27
signal has a dominant LOS pric ðr Þ = exp − K − I0 2 ð4Þ
component over other γ γ γ
weaker signal components
(scattered signals received K: Rician factor
by the receiver). This γ = (Eb/N0)(s2+σ 2)
model performs poorly
S2: power in the specular component
when the LOS signal is
Eb/N0: SNR
very weak compared to
I0(.) is the modified Bessel function of the first kind and zero order
other scattered signals.
 
Nakagami The model is used when the 2r 2m − 1
mm mr 2 Abuelenin28
model received signal contributes pnak ðr Þ = exp − , r ≥ 0, m ≥ 0:5 ð5Þ
ΓðmÞ Ω Ω
from diffuse and specular
scattering (the electric field Γ(m): Gamma function
is the sum of a vital m (fading parameter) = E½rΩ2 − r
2

component that might not

necessarily be LOS) and average received power, Ω = E[r2]
several contributions with if m = 1, Pnak reduces to Pray
less amplitude. The m
parameter relates to the
amplitudes of strong and
weak elements. This model
can be reduced to Rayleigh
and Rician model under
certain conditions
 m Cheng et al.29
Weibull This model is used in mr m − 1 r
model heterogeneous pwei ðr Þ = exp − , r ≥ 0, m > 0 ð6Þ
Ω Ω
environments which
include both indoor and When fading parameter m = 1, it becomes exponential distribution
outdoor while m = 2 specializes in the Rayleigh distribution

4.3 | Shadowing problem

Sometimes, a signal is attenuated due to the long-distance propagation, absorption, reflection, refraction, and scattered
around large objects along the communication path. This phenomenon is known as shadowing or large-scale fading.25
The shadowing effect depends on LOS and Non-LOS communication. A large building or mountain comes between the
transmitter's and receiver's LOS path, and severe shadowing would be encountered. Shadowing and path loss can be
modeled by using the multipath fading propagation model described in the earlier subsection.

4.4 | Hidden PU problems

This issue can be minimized by using CSS. Spatial-temporal diversity can be employed by the vehicles to participate in
the cooperation for the SS decision.
10 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

4.5 | Effects of PU activities

PU activities are random. For this reason, SS is highly dependent on the PU activity duty cycle. Frequent absence or
presence of the PU degrades the SS performance. Therefore, for the CR-VANET scenario, the PU pattern should be con-
sidered for the SS technique implementation.30
The PU activity cycle can be modeled using statistical or mathematical models. It would provide the details of the PU
traffic patterns. If a SU can develop a PU's transmission pattern, it would increase SS's performance. PU pattern can be kept
by the RSU and can be used later as a reference for predicting future PU activity (when PU transmits or when it remains
idle and so on). PU activity model is very much necessitated for the optimized SS, especially in the unknown radio environ-
ment (like CR-VANET scenario). There are several PU activity models proposed in the literature. They are as follows30:

i. ON/OFF model
ii. Markov process
iii. Queuing theory
iv. Time series.

They are discussed below.

4.5.1 | ON/OFF model

This model is also known as the birth-death process activity model. This is the most used PU traffic pattern model. It is
described as the random process in which the PU state switches between ON and OFF states. Here, ON state means PU
is an inactive (busy) state; that is, PU utilizes the corresponding channel. OFF state means PU is in an inactive or idle
state; that is, PU is not using that channel.
The nature of PU is not deterministic and very random; therefore, ON/OFF state distribution randomly varies with
the random nature of PU and the transmission pattern (long time transmission or short time transmission, etc.). For
example, TV channels are used for long ON/OFF patterns, while cellular channels have short patterns.
As per the condition, SU only can use the licensed channels, while PU is in an idle state (OFF state). For character-
izing the ON/OFF model, let us consider that PU transmission's arrival rate is α and the departure rate of PU (ON state
to OFF state) is β. We can write
α
Probability of the ON state, PON = , ð7Þ
α+β
β
Probability of the OFF state, POFF = : ð8Þ
α+β

The value of PON and POFF is significant for the robustness of the SS issue. Though several research types assume
static PU activities, in reality, and a practical point of view, that assumption is not feasible. It must be considered as ran-
dom. Say, for example, a SU senses and finds a channel free and starts transmitting a signal on that channel, but at that
moment, a PU might arrive or turn as ON; then the SU would face severe interference. Therefore, SS should be a con-
tinuous process even in the period of transmission. Spectrum technique must incorporate the PU activity model. If a
PU suddenly arrives, SU must free the channel and switch (handoff) to another free channel. Moreover, the speed of
the vehicle affects the PU activity model. When a vehicle moves fast from one location to another location, it has to deal
with a new PU model different from the previous location's model.

4.5.2 | Markov process

Markov process is known as the stochastic random process with a finite positive number of possible states. In this
process, if the current state is i and the fixed probability is Pij, then the next state will be j. This process has been widely
used as the PU activity model in the literature. In this model, there are two states. One is the OFF state (or 0 states)
where PUs does not occupy the spectrum; thus, SUs can utilize it. And another state is ON state (1 state), where PUs
HOSSAIN ET AL. 11 of 23

occupy the spectrum, SUs cannot use it. There are several types of Markov processes available in the literature, such as
the two-state Markov chain, three-state Markov chain, hidden Markov model, and semi-Markov model.30

4.5.3 | Queuing theory

A Queuing system is defined as a system that consists of users requiring some form of services and servers (channel in
this case) who provide those services (spectrum usage). A queuing model in PU activity is denoted in terms of the prob-
ability distribution of the inter-arrival times of PUs, the probability distribution of the spectrum occupancy, the number
of channels, and the queue capacity.31 M/G/1 is a queuing theory model in which arrivals of PUs follow the Markovian
distribution and service times follow the general distribution. Bernoulli process is another type of queuing theory. It is a
process of finite or infinite binary (i.e., 0 or 1) random sequence. Bernoulli variables are independent and identically
distributed. In this model, the Bernoulli process describes the arrival and channel states.30

4.5.4 | Time series

Under this type of PU activity model, ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) is the most popular model.
It combines three-time series models such as the autoregressive (AR) models, the moving average (MA) models, and
the integrated (I) models.32 ARIMA is a spectrum prediction model mainly proposed for the GSM (Global System for
Mobile Communication) but now can be applied in the CR network.33

4.6 | Heterogeneous QoS requirement

Another challenge of the SS is the heterogeneous QoS requirements in the VANET scenario. There are several types of
communications in VANET, such as V2V, V2I, I2I, V2P, and V2R. These have been discussed in subsection 3.1. V2I
links are used to support various traffic efficiency, information, and infotainment services. For these, a large number of
data have to be transferred and hence need more bandwidth.
On the other hand, V2V links are generally used for safety-critical information sharing, such as essential safety messages
exchange in DSRC to avoid accidents. This service requires the QoS of low latency and high reliability.20 In summary, based
on the types of communication, the requirement of the QoS of the vehicles varies. In general, all the CR users look for the
vacant spectrum either they need for the safety message exchange or the infotainment. In summary, there is no provision
for priority among SUs. Therefore, this remains another level of challenge for the researchers in the CR-VANET scenario.

4.7 | Other spread spectrum techniques

Another challenge in SS is the spread spectrum techniques and their users. Spread spectrum techniques are frequency-
hoping spread-spectrum (FHSS) and direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS). Fixed frequency devices (such as devices
in IEEE 802.11a/g WLAN) use a single frequency or channel. However, based on the sequences known by both trans-
mitter and receiver, FHSS devices switch or hop over multiple operational frequencies or channels.11 The basic differ-
ence between DSSS and FHSS is that DSSS devices operate in only one band to stretch their energy. The main
challenge behind these SS techniques is that the PUs that use either FHSS or DSSS are hard to detect, because PUs'
power level is dispersed over a wide band of frequencies and sometimes the hopping pattern (changing operational fre-
quencies) is not known and synchronized.

4.8 | Security issues

There are several types of security threats, and their solutions in CR-VANET are available in the literature. However, in
this paper, we have focused on security issues and their solutions only from the SS perspective. We have not focused on
the security issues of VANET or CR, or CR-VANET.
12 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

FIGURE 6 PUEA in CR-VANET

The security concern is one of the biggest problems for the SUs in SS. There are several security threats in CR-VANET
that affect the SS. A few examples of these attacks are primary user emulation attack (PUEA), jamming attack, Byzantine
attack, and spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF).34 In PUEA, the SU pretends itself as a PU to selfishly use the
licensed channel. A general scenario of PUEA in the CR-VANET is given in Figure 6. Here, SU can use a vacant TV
spectrum if there is no DSRC is available. Suppose an attacker wants to occupy a vacant TV spectrum selfishly and do not
like to share it with others. For this purpose, the attacker pretends as a PU and sends the exact signal of PU to SUs. The
SUs sense the vacant spectrum as occupied by the PU (sense the presence of PU). Therefore, SU avoids this spectrum and
release the spectrum to avoid interference. The attacker grabs this opportunity and uses this spectrum selfishly.13 PUEA
has two outcomes: unjust access to the spectrum band and the disruption of the CR operation that degrade the overall QoS.
In the jamming attack, the jammer propagates a random signal to create unnecessary interference. This attack
reduces link reliability, delay increment, and more energy consumption and disturbs the routes. In the Byzantine
attack, the malicious user acts as an authentic user and does random behavior to interrupt the system. In SSDF, an
attacker broadcasts false SS information and mislead other CR users for their benefits. There are different variations
of attacks such as black hole attacks, distributed denial of service or DDoS attacks, joint spectrum sensing and data
transmission (JSSDT) attacks, and common control data attack (CCDA).13 These attacks tremendously hamper the SS
functionality. Therefore, proper mitigation techniques and actions must be taken to cope up with these challenges.
Table 3 summarizes the SS challenges faced in the CR-VANET environment.

5 | S OM E SOLUTIONS A ND F UTURE DIRECTIONS

This section discusses some solutions to the previously described challenges and provides future research directions in
this domain.

5.1 | Usage of machine learning

In recent days, machine learning (ML) usage to enhance CR's performance has been increased. ML is now being used
to solve several problems associated with CR. Sharma and Bohara36 discussed three primary ML tools to solve some of
the CR-VANET challenges that have been discussed in the previous section.
HOSSAIN ET AL. 13 of 23

TABLE 3 Summary of the SS challenges in CR-VANET

Challenges and
No. problems Definitions References
1. Effect of vehicle Due to high-speed mobility, a vehicle moves very fast from one radio Chembe et al.15 and Niculescu35
speed and environment to another; hence, it gets less time for spectrum
direction sensing. Frequent spectrum switching is needed. It also affects the
routing protocols and faces Doppler-shift effects.
2. Effect of Due to high-rise buildings, mountains, reflection, and so forth, a Akyildiz et al.,14 Al-Ahmadi
multipath signal comes to the receiver from two or more paths; this and Khoshafa,25
fading phenomenon is known as multipath fading or small-scale fading. Gómez-Déniz and Gómez-Déniz,26
Doppler shift also causes this problem. This fading distorts the Wongtrairat and Supnithi,27
receiving radio signal. Abuelenin,28 and Cheng et al.29
Some of the significant propagation models are the Rayleigh model,
Rician model, Nakagami model, and Weibull model.
3. Shadowing Signal attenuation is due to the long-distance propagation, Ahmadi and Khoshafa25
problem absorption, reflection, refraction, and scattered around large
objects along the communication path. This phenomenon is
known as shadowing or large-scale fading.
4. Hidden PU Due to the obstacle, SU mistakenly considers PU's absence, but in Yücek and Arslan11
problems reality, PU exists there.
5. Effects of PU PU activities are random (i.e., the uncertainty of the PU's absence or Saleem and Rehmani30 and Wang
activities presence). This situation degrades the spectrum sensing and Salous33
performance. For this reason, spectrum sensing is highly
dependent on the PU activity duty cycle.
Few examples, the PU activities are ON/OFF model, the Markov
process, queuing theory, and time series.
6. Heterogeneous Various types of communication in VANET have diverse QoS Liang et al.20
QoS requirement. Maintaining the priority among the CR services is an
requirement excellent challenge in CR-VANET.
7. Other spread Another challenge in spectrum sensing is the spread spectrum Yücek and Arslan11
spectrum techniques such as FHSS and DSSS and their users.
techniques
8. Security issues It is one of the biggest challenges for spectrum sensing in the Fragkiadakis et al.34
CR-VANET environment.

A genetic algorithm (GA) can be used to manage the spectrum in CR. Suppose the parameters of SUs, such as
modulation scheme, bandwidth, data rates, and power utilization, are learned and optimized by using GA. In that
case, SUs can access the vacant spectrum on a non-interfering basis with PUs more intelligently. This would
enhance the spectrum utilization factor.37 This would also make the CR decision faster than the conventional
system.
Vacancy of the spectrum can be predicted by using an artificial neural network (ANN). SU can indicate a channel's
status using ANN and previous sensing history, whether it is vacant or not. This would eventually save the sensing
period of SUs. As we have discussed earlier, the sensing period is concise for vehicles due to their high-speed mobility.
Therefore, ANN can help CR users predict the channel and save the sensing time.38 That means, by using less sensing
time, it can access the vacant spectrum. As they spend less time for sense, they can get more time for data transmission.
Nevertheless, ANN can solve high-speed mobility or solve the shortage-time issue in sensing problems. This also solves
the case of the random PU activities effect.
Another approach to tackle the challenges of CR is to use the hidden Markov model (HMM) based on the
pre-allocation of the frequency channel. CR user does not transmit any data while sensing the medium. This
reduces the overall throughput of CR users. This trade-off between the sensing time and the throughput can be
optimized by using HMM-based pre-allocation of the frequency channel.39 Eventually, this solves the vehicle speed
and direction issue.
14 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

ML can be used to solve other aspects of CR-VANET challenges. It enhances the overall performance of any CR
techniques. For example, CSS is used to solve the hidden PU problems. ML can help CSS to improve its fusion
operations.40 As a result, ML helps to solve the hidden PU problems. The authors applied ML, along with CSS, to tackle
hidden PU problems in Kim and Choi.41
ML can also be used to mitigate several security threats in the CR-VANET scenario. ML can be used to tackle SSDF,
man-in-the-middle attack, PUEA, jamming attack, denial of services (DoS), and so forth. For example, reinforcement
learning (RL, a type of ML) can be used to solve DoS or distributed DoS attacks, jamming attacks, and other malicious
attacks.42–44
There are still more rooms to work with ML in the field of CR-VANET. More sophisticated ML such as deep
Q-learning (DQN), recursive neural network (RNN), or the combination of several supervised and unsupervised ML
can be applied to tackle the challenges of CR-VANET that have been discussed earlier.

5.2 | Usage of CSS instead of non-cooperative SS

Hidden PU problem occurs when any SU cannot detect any PU's presence within SU's transmission range, but in
reality, there PU is present. This problem or challenge has been discussed in Section 4.4. Due to this problem, SU
interferes with the PU's transmission. This problem happens when any SU individually takes the CR decision. By
exploiting the advantage of multiuser diversity, CSS can be the more handy SS technique to tackle the hidden PU
problem than the non-cooperative SS.45 ML can be used along with the CSS to tackle hidden PU problems more
efficiently.41
As we discussed earlier, shadowing and fading problems are challenges in CR-VANET to tackle. CSS with diversity
reception can enhance PU detection accuracy and solve the shadowing and fading problems.46

5.3 | Pre-learning about the hopping pattern

For PUs who use spread spectrum and frequency hopping techniques, PU'S signal power is distributed over a wider fre-
quency. However, the actual information bandwidth is narrower than PU's overall power distribution. Therefore, it is
tough to detect PU's presence by SU. This creates a massive problem in SS for the SUs. This problem can be tackled if
the hopping pattern is pre-learned by SU, and the signals' synchronization can be obtained correctly.47
The learning of the hopping pattern and the synchronization of signals is still not straightforward and remains a
challenge for researchers. In conventional SS, three dimensions are used for the sensing purpose: frequency, time, and
space. However, there is another dimension in these three dimensions: the code dimension, which has not been fully
explored in literature. Doing the estimation in the code dimension is still a fancy topic for the researchers.

5.4 | A new PU activity model needs to be designed

PU activities models described in the earlier section cannot be fully deployed in the VANET scenario due to its rapid
topological change. Therefore, new types of PU activity models have to be developed for the VANET perspective that
will consider the high-speed mobility issues and the rapid topological change.30 A new model should consider time, fre-
quency, location dimension, and their amalgamation.15
ML-based PU activity model can be designed. Hernández et al.48 developed a PU characterization algorithm based
on deep learning and neural network. Their algorithm minimized PU's spectrum band usage modeling and prediction
error. This eventually enhanced the performance in the CR decision.

5.5 | Algorithms with fast convergence time

In the previous section, we discussed the challenge related to high-speed mobility. Due to this challenge, the topology
changes very rapidly, and hence, vehicles must sense and access the vacant channels within a shorter period. Therefore,
the sensing purpose algorithm should be very fast in terms of its convergence rate.2 For example, the Q-learning
HOSSAIN ET AL. 15 of 23

algorithm, a type of RL, can be used for faster and more reliable sensing, but the Q-learning's problem is that it is very
slow in convergence. That means it takes a more extended period to learn about the environment by vehicles that use
Q-learning. Though after the convergence, it provides better and faster sensing results. This slow convergence issue can
be resolved using transfer learning (TL), a variation of ML, and the existing Q-learning approach. There are several
types of TL, such as transfer actor-critic algorithm (TACT), teacher-student learning approach, or docitive learning
approach. A vehicle can share its own learned surrounding radio environment information to the TL's new learning
vehicle. This makes the learning process faster; that is, faster convergence is achieved.49,50
A faster convergent algorithm can also help solve other challenges, such as PU activities, heterogeneous QoS
requirements, and security threats. This area is still open for further research.

5.6 | Beamforming antenna, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), and cooperative

relays

One of the significant constraints for the temporal and spectral reuse of the limited resource is interference in any wire-
less network. To tackle this issue, beamforming antennas, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), and cooperative
relays have significant roles to play.51 A beamforming antenna (BA) is an antenna technique in which the antenna pat-
tern can be focused on a specific region. Signal quality is improved (obtained a higher signal to noise ratio or SNR) in
the concentrated beam using BA, which eventually enhances the throughput.52 BA is more relevant to the VANET
deployment as the vehicle's orientations are not too random (orientation is only changed when vehicles change their
routes). As the signal can be transferred in a particular direction, a vehicle can signal a specific vehicle. This will avoid
interference and also helps to improve throughput and security.53 This will eventually solve the shadowing problem as
well as the multipath fading issue.54
MIMO can improve the throughput of the vehicular network by increasing diversity and multiplexing gains.51 Coop-
erative relay (CoR) provides spatial diversity by relaying data between source and destination. CoR is used to mitigate
fading problems, path loss issue, and shadowing problems. It also solves the small coverage and low SNR issues. This
eventually increases bandwidth availability and spectral utilization.55 The usage of CoR in CR and VANET has been
discussed in Hossain et al.55
Combining these three prominent techniques in CR-VANETs is still a very promising domain for researchers, espe-
cially those who work in hardware implementations.

5.7 | Vehicular cloud, fog computing, trust management, blockchain, and other
technologies to secure SS

To secure the SS issues, the usage of vehicular cloud is another option. The vehicular cloud includes vehicles and RSUs
autonomously. It has lower latency compared to the traditional cloud system. Wei et al.56 proposed a joint RSU and
vehicle-based light-weighted cloud for CR-VANETs. They introduced a new service in cloud computing and named it
Spectrum Sensing as a Service (SSaaS). It performs CSS with the help of cloud computing to enhance the security of SS.
Lee et al.57 also proposed a similar vehicular cloud networking model, which comprises vehicular cloud computing
and information-centric networking to secure the SS.
Nadeem et al.58 integrated blockchain technology with edge computing to secure the SS and other security concerns
in CR-VANET. They proposed a fog node based distributed blockchain cloud architecture that manages high volume
data through vehicles with an efficient computational performance at the edge of the network. Their proposed scheme
ensures computational resource availability and reduces the data traffic in the core network.
Blockchain-based security measure in SS was proposed in Sajid et al.59 They converted PUs and SUs into the form
of a block like a blockchain that creates a decentralized network by combining them. They used a digital signature
mechanism in blockchain for the verification of the attacker and the legitimate users. More about blockchain technol-
ogy in SS and management can be found in Liang.60
To overcome the reception of false information from a hostile intruder, a location-based transmitter authentication
scheme was proposed in Ramani and Sharma.61 For the verification scheme, they used both signal characteristics and
the location of the PU transmitter. It can differentiate a legitimate PU's signals and a malicious attacker's PU pretending
signal. The limitation of this scheme is that the location of the PU has to be known earlier.
16 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

Usage of a digital signature-based public-key encryption method is another solution to overcome the attacker who
pretends to be a PU.62 PU's identity would be encrypted using a unique private key, and PU also acts as a certification
authority. PU appends a digital signature to its transmission. During the SS, all SUs scan for the digital signature. RSU
consolidates and verifies the signatures of the various SUs. As the PU's signature is associated with its unique private
key, fake PU (an SU pretending to be PU) cannot generate a valid signature.
Another technique to secure SS, especially for CR-VANET, is to use RF fingerprinting. It uses some radiometric
parameters extracted from the analog signals of the transmitters. In other words, RF fingerprint uses unique character-
istics of the signal of the transmitter, which is electromagnetic signatures (EMS) of the transmitted signal. Afolabi
et al.63 proposed such a type of solution to overcome PUEA. Usage of database and sensing history-based solutions are
also found in the literature.64,65
Trust management is another well-known technique to enhance the security of SS. For the interactions between the
CR nodes, there must be a trust level to ensure secure communication. The trust level between the CR nodes is needed
for the spectrum decision, fusion decision, and so on. Trust value is computed by the interaction experience or from
given reputation value by the other third-party nodes.66 Every trust value would be updated from time to time. After
the trust value calculation, it must be associated with the various security mechanisms such as data secrecy, integrity,
and privacy. It is also used to secure the clustering and fusion as well as for secure SS. More detail about trust manage-
ment in the CR network can be found in Ling et al.66 He et al.67 proposed a unified trust management scheme for SS
and data transmission processes in CR-VANETs. A weighted consensus-based SS scheme was presented in that paper
to secure the SS. They also incorporated trust value into their proposed method. Kar et al.68 also proposed a trust man-
agement scheme that calculates sensing reputation by evaluating the nodes' trustworthiness in the CSS techniques.
Based on the sensing reputation value, the attackers are identified, and they are filtered out from the CSS scheme's
decision process. A similar approach was also proposed in Mousavifar and Leung.69
Table 4 summarizes the solutions to solve CR-VANET problems.

TABLE 4 Solutions of the CR problems in VANET

Problems

No. Solution P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 References

1 Usage of machine learning √ – – √ √ √ – √ Sharma and Bohara,36 Singh et al.,37
Tumuluru et al.,38 Sohn et al.,39 Bkassiny
et al.,40 Kim and Choi,41 Slimeni et al.,42
Singh and Trivedi,43 and Maneenil and
Usaha44
2 Usage of cooperative SS – √ √ √ – – – – Kim and Choi,41 Ganesan and Li,45 and
instead of non-cooperative Huang and Yuan46
SS
3 Pre-learning about the – – – – – – √ – Shanmugave and Bhagyaveni47
hopping pattern
4 New PU activity model – – – √ – – – – Hossain et al.,15 Saleem and Rehmani,30
and Hernández et al.4848
5 Algorithm with fast √ – – – √ √ – √ Singh et al.,2 Hossain et al.,49 and Koushik
convergence et al.50
6 Beamforming antenna, √ √ √ – – – – √ Vouyioukas,51 Ren et al.,52 Duan et al.,53
multiple-input multiple- Weiler et al.,54 and Hossain et al.55
output (MIMO), and
cooperative relays
7 Vehicular cloud, fog – – – – – – – √ Previous studies57–69
computing, trust
management, blockchain,
and other technologies to
secure SS

Note. P1, high-speed mobility (less sensing time); P2, multipath fading problems; P3, shadowing problems; P4, hidden PU problems; P5, problems with PU
activities; P6, heterogeneous QoS requirement; P7, other spectrum techniques; P8, security threats.
HOSSAIN ET AL. 17 of 23

6 | PROPOSED CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

There are lots of challenges and issues for the SS in CR-VANET. Some of them have been discussed in the earlier
sections. To solve all the problems by a single framework is not possible and feasible. We have proposed a novel
Segment-based CR-VANET (Seg-CR-VANET) architecture in this paper. In our proposed framework, we have used
density-aware multi-agent reinforcement learning-based SS and 2-hop routing in CR-VANET. The framework can be
used to overcome the challenges of SS that are discussed earlier.
Figure 7 shows the system model of CR-VANET architecture, which comprises vehicles, segment agents, and
CR-RSU. In this, the vehicles are SUs, and they are dynamic, while PUs in the network is static. The network is composed
of equal length of road lane as segments appointed with each segment agent that makes a global decision of the SS. The
vehicles perform SS and report the information to the agent, and then the CR-RSU allocates the channel for transmission.
Each segment is divided into four sub-segments, and these sub-segments are merged in case of sparse traffic density.
Each entity in the designed network architecture has its work process. The entities and their responsibilities are
given in a flow chart in Figure 8, and the descriptions are provided below:

FIGURE 7 System model

18 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

FIGURE 8 Proposed framework

(1) The vehicles decide for sensing technique and sense the signal, then report to the spectrum agent. The vehicle
also selects two-hop forwarders for routing.
(2) The spectrum agent collects local sensing information and decides using reinforcement learning and reports to
CR-RSU.
(3) The CR-RSU manages the segments, and it assigns a channel to vehicles.
The vehicle first decides to use the most suitable sensing technique for the current environment. For this, Fuzzy
Naïve Bayes algorithm computes SNR and noise power, based on which the energy detection or matched filter tech-
nique is used for sensing. From this local information, the spectrum agent takes a global decision. The spectrum agent
gathers all the sensing reports from a particular sub-segment and uses a Tri-Agent Reinforcement Learning (TA-RL)
algorithm that learns signals, network, and vehicle behavior in that specific sub-segment predicts the presence or
absence of PU.
In the Fuzzy Bayes algorithm, the threshold value is dynamically by using Tsallis entropy so that the detection of
the SS report is exact in the current environment. Since the signal features are not the same, a dynamic threshold is set
for SS.

6.1 | Segment management and channel allocation

The CR-RSU receives a report from agents that includes all the vehicle requirements and agents' sensing reports. From
this, it allocates channels for the vehicles by computing the data type and QoS. The QoS metric composes of bandwidth,
delay, and jitter requirements of a vehicle. Based on these estimations, the channels are assigned to vehicles; these
metrics' consideration enables appropriate transmission channels.
HOSSAIN ET AL. 19 of 23

TABLE 5 Problems solved by the proposed framework

Problems How can the proposed framework solve that problem?

P1: High-speed mobility (less
sensing time)
P2: Multipath fading problems
P3: Shadowing problems
P4: Hidden PU problems
P5: Problems with PU activities
P6: Heterogeneous QoS
requirement
P7: Other spectrum techniques
P8: Security threats
• Making the road segment into sub-segments eases the spectrum management process.
• Usage of the tri-agent reinforcement learning algorithm learns about the environment and
accelerates spectrum sensing accuracy and speed.
• Usage of the fuzzy Naïve Bayes algorithm to select the most appropriate sensing technique.
• Usage of cooperative spectrum sensing instead of non-cooperative spectrum sensing for the final
decision.
• Usage of cooperative spectrum sensing instead of non-cooperative spectrum sensing for the final
decision.
• Usage of tri-agent reinforcement learning algorithm learns about the environment.
• Usage of cooperative spectrum sensing instead of non-cooperative spectrum sensing for the final
decision.
• Usage of density-aware, multi-agent RL algorithm.
Making the road segment into sub-segments eases the spectrum management process.
• CR-RSU allocates channels for the vehicles by computing the data type and QoS using analytical
hierarchy process (AHP) mapping.
• Usage of dynamic machine learning algorithms (TA-RL, fuzzy Naïve Bayes algorithm)
• They are considered as future works.

The segmented road lane with sub-segments is managed by estimating a probability value composed of speed, seg-
ment size, and node degree. The segment size denotes the number of vehicles that are moving in a sub-segment.
According to the probability value, the sub-segments are merged remains as per the sub-segments. Hence, the vehicles
are assigned with channels, and the segments are managed following the density of vehicles.

6.2 | Routing

In routing, the selection of the entire route in VANET is critical since the vehicle is moving faster; if the vehicles in the
route move far, it requires frequent route selection and increases the number of retransmissions. Even though the for-
warder is selected, it is essential to consider channel and vehicle characteristics. Therefore, we have proposed a routing
scheme in which the vehicle sets two-hop neighboring vehicles instead of selecting a complete route between source
and destination for transmission. The selection of two hops is performed by multi-objective Harris Hawks optimization
(MO-HHO) algorithm. Mobility, direction, and state of the vehicles have been considered for making the routing deci-
sions. Then the second-hop neighbor selects the next two hops towards the destination vehicle. The data packets are
transmitted to the destination using the allocated channels for communication.
The proposed SS framework can solve several challenges and issues that are discussed in the earlier sections.
Table 5 shows how this framework can solve these challenges and problems.
For evaluating the proposed concept, we have modeled our proposed vehicular network using a network simulation
tool, namely OMNeT++ with the SUMO framework. We have used Veins, INET, and crSimulator frameworks in the
OMNeT++ flatform. Vehicles' mobility type is considered based on the Veins' submodule TraCIMobility. We have con-
sidered the network area of 2,750 m × 2,250 m with 100 vehicles as SUs, 10 static PUs, 2 RSUs, and 2 SSAs. We have
also considered a maximum of four sub-segments per segment. In general, vehicles in a non-congested network use
DSRC channels (six service channels or SCH) of 10 MHz bandwidth in the range of 5.9 GHz. For communication in the
MAC/PHY layer, WAVE/IEEE802.11p standard is used for the DSRC channel. TV channels of 6 MHz bandwidth in the
range of 500–524 MHz are considered as CR bands. For the CR purpose, we have four channels. That means with DSRC
and TV, we have a total of 10 channels.
In Figure 9, we have compared the proposed hybrid ML-based SS method with the base SS techniques such as
energy detection and matched filter with static threshold values. The analysis shows that the base algorithms lack the
probability of detection. When the vehicle speed is increased, then the probability of detection is decreased rapidly. This
better result is because energy detection fails to sense the spectrum in low SNR, and the matched filter fails to sense the
spectrum in high SNR scenarios. Thus, both methods achieve less than 0.3 as the probability of detection. In our work,
20 of 23 HOSSAIN ET AL.

FIGURE 9 Probability of detection analysis

FIGURE 10 Probability of detection with false alarm analysis

the involvement of hybrid ML-based dynamic SS improves detection probability up to 0.98. Moreover, due to the seg-
mentation, the overall network is more manageable, and the spectrum allocation is more reliable and efficient.
Figure 10 shows the average probability of detection is compared by varying values of the average probability of
false alarm. We have considered the SNR value as −10 dB. The figure shows that the value of the probability of detec-
tion is increased as the value of the probability of false alarm is increased. The proposed Seg-CR-VANET shows a better
result than the basic sensing techniques. Our sensing scheme could maintain the probability of detection of 0.9
(i.e., 90%) based on the probability of false alarm of 0.2. However, the higher value of the probability of false alarm
makes the SUs limit the radio spectrum's reuse.
The better results found in work is due to the usage of dynamic machine learning, incorporating several significant
parameters, use of TA-RL, dynamic threshold values, and proper routing.

7 | C ON C L U S I ON

CR-based ad hoc vehicle network (VANET) or CR-VANET is a highly technologically sophisticated network. CR com-
pensates for the spectral deficiency of VANET. SS is one of the main phases of the CR process. CR-VANET has some
additional problems in SS relative to other CR-based networks. These problems were listed in detail in this article. The
challenges include the effects of high-speed mobility and vehicle route, the heterogeneous quality of service (QoS) speci-
fications, security issues, shadowing and multi-path fading problems, and so forth. The paper also addressed solutions
to these problems and a variety of potential avenues for research. Examples of such solutions include using machine
HOSSAIN ET AL. 21 of 23

learning, using CSS, new PU activity modeling, the construction of faster convergent algorithms, and the use of
beamforming antennas. The proposed framework resolves a variety of issues and concerns that are addressed in the
paper. It provides better results than the conventional spectrum techniques. However, there is still a great deal of poten-
tial for research and study into spectrum sensing challenges in CR-VANET.

A C K N O WL E D G M E N T S
This work was supported by a partnership grant under Grants RK004-2017 and CR-UM-SST-DCIS-2018-01 between
University of Malaya and Sunway University.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study

ORCID
Mohammad Asif Hossain https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8685-3113
Rafidah Md Noor https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6266-2390
Saaidal Razalli Azzuhri https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8603-8840
Muhammad Reza Z'aba https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4908-7816
Ismail Ahmedy https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4324-8965
Kok-Lim Alvin Yau https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3110-2782
Christopher Chembe https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2405-7952

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How to cite this article: Hossain MA, Md Noor R, Azzuhri SR, et al. Spectrum sensing challenges & their
solutions in cognitive radio based vehicular networks. Int J Commun Syst. 2021;e4748. https://doi.org/10.1002/
dac.4748