Individual vs cooperative spectrum sensing for Cognitive Radio Networks

Abstract

Cognitive Radio Networks provide a solution to the spectrum scarcity in wireless communication. It works on principle of dynamic spectrum management, which enables the secondary user to use the licensed spectrum of primary user opportunistically. To implement it we have to detect the absence of primary signal technically called detecting a spectrum hole. In this paper performance of both individual and cooperative spectrum sensing are evaluated under various parameters (like SNR, sensing time, number of users). Simulation results shows that cooperative spectrum sensing performs better than individual spectrum sensing.