Cooperative spectrum sensing protocols in cognitive radio based on energy detection

Abstract

Spectrum sensing is the most important task of a cognitive radio network that aims to opportunistic spectrum access (OSA), whereas it has been shown that cooperative spectrum sensing improves the performance of a secondary network. Recently, the idea of relaying has been introduced as a method for improving the detection of primary users in cognitive radio. In this paper, we propose a novel cooperative spectrum sensing protocol that exhibits improved performance compared to existing protocols. In this protocol, decision fusion is used to reach a final decision based on the decisions made in each time slot at the secondary user with the lower detection probability. An analysis, as well as simulation results are provided to demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed protocol compared to existing ones.