Hybrid Spectrum Sensing Using MD and ED for Cognitive Radio Networks

Abstract

Day by day, the demand for wireless systems is increasing while the available spectrum resources are not sufficient. To fulfil the demand for wireless systems, the spectrum hole (spectrum vacant) should be found and utilised very effectively. Cognitive radio (CR) is a device which intelligently senses the spectrum through various spectrum-sensing detectors. Based on the complexity and licensed user’s information present with CR, the appropriate detector should be utilised for spectrum sensing. In this paper, a hybrid detector (HD) is proposed to determine the spectrum hole from the available spectrum resources. HD is designed based on an energy detector (ED) and matched detector (MD). Unlike a single detector such as ED or MD, HD can sense the signal more precisely. Here, HD can work on both conditions whether the primary user (PU) information is available or not. HD is analysed under heterogeneous environments with and without cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS). For CSS, four users were used to implement OR, AND, and majority schemes under low SNR walls. To design the HD, specifications were chosen based on the IEEE Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) 802.22 standard for accessing TV spectrum holes. For the HD model, we achieved the best results through OR rule. Under the low SNR circumstances at −20 dB SNR, the probability of detection (PD) is maximised to 1 and the probability of a false alarm (PFA) is reduced to 0 through the CSS environment.