Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR for Spectrum Sensing based on FM Real Signals

Abstract

The cognitive radio (CR) is proposed as an optimal solution to solve the spectrum underutilization problem. Spectrum sensing is the first enabling stage in cognitive radio. The objective is to obtain the state of the band in interest (free/occupied), then use it temporarily without causing any interference to the primary user (PU). It has been shown that the energy detection is the most chosen method to detect the free bands, in the case when there is no prior information about the primary user. In this paper, we are interested in the implementation of the spectrum sensing (SS) operation based on a real FM signal generated by Raspberry pi 3 card using the FHSS method, and captured under MATLAB-Simulink software by an RTL-SDR hardware. The performance of this approach is evaluated in terms of its ability to detect the transmitted signal.