3

Introduction to Spectrum SensingTechniques

The topic of spectrum sensing and primary user detection has gained a great deal of interest in the context of cognitive radios for dynamic spectrum access networks. Spectrum sensing is one of the crucial functionalities of a cognitive radio in order to learn the radio environment. In literature, one, can nd various spectrum sensing techniques [1, 2] which, in general, could be classied as (1) energy-based sensing, (2) cyclostationary feature-based sensing, (3) matched lter-based sensing and (4) other sensing techniques. Different techniques serve different purposes based on their advantages and drawbacks. The energy-based sensing is the simplest method to sense the environment in a blind manner; the cyclostationary-based sensing may require some information about the spectraluser signal characteristics; and the matched lter-based sensing requires the complete information of the spectral-user signal, which are presented in detail in this chapter. Some of the other techniques, such as the covariance-based method and the eigenvalue-based method, are also presented.

3.1 Introduction
The recent interest in cognitive radio-related research has attracted a great deal of interest in spectrum sensing and detection of radio users in the
45

46

Cognitive Radio Techniques

nvironment. The key objective behind spectrum sensing and detection is to e see how reliably one could detect the radio users given a particular scenario with an acceptable payoff or trade-off. In other words, the main objective is to maximize the probability of detection without losing much on the probability of false alarm while minimizing the complexity and time to sense/detect the radio. In this section, we present various methods and techniques to detect the radio users in the environment. Let us dene the signal model to be used in the rest of the chapter. Following from the previous chapter, we dene two hypothesis H0 and H1 to represent the presence of a radio signal, the corresponding signal model is given by r (t ) = (t ); under H 0 hs(t )+(t ); under H1

(3.1)

where r(t) is the complex baseband of the sensed radio signal, s(t) is the received primary user signal, and (t) is the additive bandlimited complex Gaussian noise with a noise power of 2 (including the real and imaginary noise components) over a bandwidth of Bw (Hz). The channel component h has an amplitude and phase shift associated with it given by h = . Various models can be adopted for the received radio signal s(t) without the noise component, depending on the considered wireless channel. In the subsequent sections, we consider different channel models and present their corresponding detection performances.

3.2 Spectrum Sensing with Energy Detection

The energy based spectrum sensing and detection is the simplest method for detecting primary users in the environment in a blind manner [3]. The energy detector is computationally efcient and could also be used conveniently with analog and digital signals, that is at the RF/IF stages or at the base band. It also has a well-known drawback in the detection performance when the noise variance is unknown to the sensing node. When the signal-to-noise ratio is very low, it would be hard distinguish between the radio signal and noise signal, therefore the knowledge of the noise power can be used to improve the detection performance of the energy detector.
3.2.1 Energy Detector

In energy-based detectors, the energy-metric of the received signal is computed over a given time period T, or equivalently over N samples in the dis-

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

47

crete domain, and is used as the test statistic for the detection, where T = NTs and Ts is the signal sampling period. From the GLRT in the previous chapter it can be shown that the energy detector is optimum when s(t) is zero mean complex Gaussian [4]. Considering the signal model given by (3.1) the test statistic for the energy detector is given by =
t0 +T t0

r (t )r (t )dt

(3.2)

where, r (t ) is the complex conjugate of r(t) and t0 R+ is an arbitrary starting time. The signal-to-noise ratio is then dened based on the received signal s(t) assuming the signal is present throughout within the time period of consideration t1 < t t2 for some t1, t2 R+, given by =
t2 2 s(t ) s (t )dt 2 [t 2 - t1 ] t1

(3.3)

For the discrete signal r [n] = r (nTs) the energy-based test statistic is given by Ts
N -1 n=0

[n] r[n]r

(3.4)

where, N is the total number of complex samples and is also known as the time-bandwidth product, which is a metric that denes the performance of the energy based detector [3]. If T is the total sensing duration, then the time-bandwidth product is given by TBw = NTs fs = N, where f s = 1/Ts is the bandwidth of the discrete baseband signal r[n]. Note that in (3.4) there are essentially N number of real component samples and N number of imaginary component samples present, giving us a total of 2N samples. The detection criteria based on the energy-based test statistic is then given by 0; d = 1; < (3.5)

Choosing the appropriate value for the threshold is a challenging task, which we present later in this section.
3.2.2 Energy Detector in Gaussian Channel

In order to compute the detection probability and the false alarm probability, we consider the distribution of the test statistic . For the Gaussian channel with h = 1 0, the energy based test statistic follows a non central and a

48

Cognitive Radio Techniques

central chi-squared distribution under H0 and H1 respectively with 2N degrees of freedom [3]. Using the distributions of the test statistic under H0 and H1, we can derive the detection probability and the false alarm probability as [6], PD = Pr[ > ; under H1 ] = Q N ( 2TBw , ) PFA = Pr[ > ; under H 0 ] = (TBw , / 2)

(3.6) (3.7)

a -1 where, G( a , b ) = G(1 exp( -u )du is the regularized upper incomplete N ) b u Gamma function, (.) is the Gamma function, Q N (a,b) = uN exp((u2 + b a2)/2)IN1(au)/aN 1du is the generalized Marcum Q-function, and IN1(.) is the modied Bessel function of rst kind with order N 1. Let us look at some results for the detection performance of the energy detector in the additive Gaussian noise channel by plotting the complementary receiver operating characteristics (C-ROC) curve. The C-ROC depicts the probability of false alarm in the x-axis and probability of miss detection in the y-axis. Figure 3.1 shows the C-ROC curves for the energy detector for various values of signal to noise ratio levels . As we observe from the gure, the detection performance improves with increasing values of by achieving lower miss detection

10

= 0dB

10
Prof of Miss Detection

= 7dB

10

10

= 10dB

10

N = 10

10

10

10

10

10

10

Prof of False Alarm

10

10

10

Figure 3.1 C  omplementary ROC curves for the energy detector for various signal to noise ratio levels.

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

0

49

10 10
Prof of Miss Detection

N = 10

10 10 10 10

N = 30

N = 50

= 5 dB
10

10

10

10

10

Prof of False Alarm

10

10

10

Figure 3.2 C  omplementary ROC curves for the energy detector for various values of timebandwidth product N.

probabilities for lower false alarm probabilities when increases. Figure 3.2, on the other hand, shows the C-ROC curves for various values of N, and again we observe that the detection performance improves with increasing values of N. Note that the analytical results presented here do not consider the wireless channel effects, such as fading or shadowing. In the subsequent sections, we present the energy detector performance under various wireless channel conditions. Threshold Selection: The detection and false alarm probabilities depend on the threshold , and hence it is necessary to choose an appropriate value based on our requirements. The detection probability also depends on the signals power and the time-bandwidth product, whereas the false alarm probability depends only on the time-bandwidth product apart from the threshold. Therefore, one approach to choose the threshold for a given time-bandwidth product is to select to meet the desired false alarm probability.
3.2.3 Energy Detector in Fading Channels

The energy detector performance varies when the received signal component s(t) in (3.1) undergoes different types of fading. The authors in [57] have

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Cognitive Radio Techniques

derived the detection performance of energy detector for Rayleigh, Rice, and Nakagami types of fading channels with additive Gaussian noise, which we present here considering no diversity reception. Different types of distributions for the signal-energy-to-noise-power-spectral-density-ratio = 2Es / N0 = N are considered to derive the detection performance under different channel models. The corresponding probability density functions are then averaged over (3.6) to compute the detection probability, given by, PD = Q N ( a , b ) f ( )d
R

(3.8)

where a = 2TBw and b = . Note that the false alarm probability is unchanged from (3.7) because it does not depend on s(t) under H0.
3.2.3.1 Rayleigh Channel

The probability density function of in a Rayleigh fading channel is given by 1 (3.9) f ( ) = exp - for 0 where = E[ ] is the mean signal-to-noise ratio. Then by using (3.8) a closed form expression for the detection probability can be derived, given by
N-2 1 1+ - PD = exp + 2 n n =0 ! 2 n N -1

- exp 2 + 2

N- 2 - exp 2 n =0

n 2(1+ )

n!

(3.10)

Note that in [6] the authors have considered a total of N samples (N/2 for the inphase and N/2 for the quadrature), whereas we have considered a total of 2N samples (N for the inphase and N for the quadrature).
3.2.3.2 Rice Channel

The probability density function of in a Rice fading channel is given by 1+ K (1 + K ) K (1 + K ) 2 for 0 f ( ) = exp - K I 0 (3.11)
. In [6] and [7], the authors have a considered a different energy-based test statistic which is a scaled version of that presented in (3.2).

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

51

where, = E[ ] is the mean signal-to-noise ratio and K is the Rician factor. Then by using (3.8) authors in [7] have derived a closed form expression for the detection probability for N=1, given by PD = Q

2K (1 + K ) , 1+ K + 1+ K +

(3.12)

3.2.3.3 Nakagami Channel

The probability density function of in a Nakagami type fading channel is given by m 1 m m -1 f ( ) = exp for 0 G(m )
m

(3.13)

where, m is the Nakagami parameter and = E [ ]. Again, by using (3.8) authors in [6] have derived a closed form expression for the detection probability given by
N -1 ( /2)u (1 - ) PD = A1 + m exp - 1F1 m;1 + u; (3.14) 2 u 2 u =1

where, = m/(m + ) and 1F1(.;.;.) is the conuent hypergeometric function, and A1 for integer values of m is given by
m-2 m -1 - (1 - ) - (1 - ) A1 = exp Lm -1 + (1 - ) i Li 2m 2 2 i =0 (3.15)

where, Li(.) is the Laguerre polynomial of degree i. The authors in [6, 7] have also presented similar analytical results for the detection performance of the energy detector for the case of diversity reception in fading channels.
3.2.4 Energy Detector in Fading Channels with Shadowing

The detection performance of the energy detector for small scale fading channels were presented in the previous section. Here we present the same for received signals undergoing fading and shadowing simultaneously. The authors in [8] present the detection probability in closed-form considering Gamma distributed shadowing model under Rayleigh and Nakagami fading channels. They show that the detection probability for the shadowing case with fading can derived by considering as a Gamma distributed random variable (the shadowing component) in the expressions for PD under fading channels [in

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Cognitive Radio Techniques

(3.10), (3.12) and (3.14)], and then average it out for all values of . The detection probability therefore is given by PD = Pd f | ( )d f ( )d = PD f ( )d (3.16)

where, Pd is the detection probability under Gaussian channel, f | ( ) is the probability density function of of under a given fading channel conditioned on , PD is the detection probability under fading and Gaussian noise channel (without shadowing), and f ( ) is probability density function describing the shadowing component modeled as a Gamma distribution given by y k 1 exp( y / ) (3.17) , for y 0 (k ) k where, k and are the parameters describing the shadowing model. Considering a Rayleigh fading channel, the detection probability for the energy detector for the Gamma distributed shadowing model then given by f ( y) = N -2 1 PD = exp( - ) 2 n = 0 n! 2 + n

1 1 - 1 G(k - N + 1)U k - N + 1; k - n + 1; k n! G(k ) n = 0 2 n

exp( - /2) N - 2 1 1 G(n + k - N + 1)U n + k - N + 1; k + 1; k n! G(k ) n = 0 2

n

(3.18)

where, N < k + 1 and U(.;.;.) is the conuent hypergeometric function of the second kind. The authors in [8] also present a closed form expression for the detection probability for the energy detector considering Nakagami fading channel with Gamma distributed shadowing model.

3.3 Energy Detection and Noise Power Uncertainty

If the noise power level is perfectly known at the receiver, the energy director can work with arbitrary values of probability of detection and probability of false
 The authors would like to thank Andrea Mariani (Ph.D. student, University of Bologna) for his contribution to Section 3.3.

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

53

alarm, even in low SNR regimes, by using a sufciently long observation time. However, in real systems we do not have a perfect knowledge of the noise power level, causing critical implications for energy detection design. The main two problems derived from noise uncertainty are ED threshold setting [9] and the so called SNR wall [1012].
3.3.1 ED Threshold Mismatch

The typical approach for setting the threshold in energy detection is given by the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) strategy, in which the threshold value DES is chosen in order to guarantee a target false alarm rate, PFA , and can be obtained inverting the analytical expression of the false alarm probability. From (3.7) we get
DES CFAR = 2 G -1 TBw , PFA

(3.19)

In this approach, the threshold selected depends on the noise power level, 2. The actual noise power is generally unknown, so we assume that the receiverhas 2 that is typically obtained through a calibration process, and in its estimate general, is different from 2. Therefore, in practical applications, we always must consider the adoption of an ED with estimated noise power (ENP) in 2 for threshold setting can cause severe place of the ideal ED. The adoption of performance degradations. If the uncertain value 2 is obtained as noise power estimate, threshold mismatch can be avoided including the statistic of the estimator in the probability of false alarm and probability of detection formulas [9, 10, 13].
3.3.2 SNR Wall

An alternative representation of the performance of the ED is given by the so called design curves [911, 13]. The design curve is the relation between the SNR and the number of samples N required to guarantee the desired detecDES DES tion performance, PFA < PFA and PD > PD . Note that, given the sampling frequency, the number of samples is proportional to the time needed for the detection task. Then, the design curve can also be considered as the minimum signal-to-noise ratio, SNRmin, needed to full the detection specication for a given sensing time. The design curve can be derived from the expressions of

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Cognitive Radio Techniques

the probability of false alarm and probability of detection. For the ideal ED, it can be approximated as [10] SNRmin,ED
DES 1 + Q -1 PFA

1 + Q -1

( ) (P )
DES D

1 N 1 N

- 1

(3.20)

where Q1(.) is the inverse of the Gaussian tail function. For the ideal ED, the minimum SNR satisfying the target detection performance can be reduced, increasing the observation time. The ideal ED design curve is plotted DES DES in Figure 3.3 (continuous curve), with PFA = 0.9. Note = 0.1 and PD that, when N is sufciently high, the design curve has asymptotically a linear trend on a log-log scale, with a slope of 5 dB/decade [13, 14]. In practical implementations however, the noise uncertainty can cause a severe degradation of the detector performance. In particular, in some practical situations, the design curve has a lower SNR limit, under which the detection is impossible even if the observation time tends to innity. This is the so called SNR wall phenomenon. In presence of noise uncertainty, a very popular design strategy adopted in literature is to consider; the estimated noise variance is constrained into a
20
Ideal ED ENP-ED, ENP-ED, BWB-ED, M = N M = 1000 = 1 dB

10
SNR min [dB]

10

20

30

10

10

10

10

10

PDES PDES = 0.1 and PD Figure 3.3 D  esign curves for the ideal ED, ENP-ED with PFA = 0.9. The 2 2 / min = 1 dB is also shown. corresponding BWB curve with = max

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

55

2 2 , max limited range, dened by min , that contains also the real noise power 2 level [11, 12, 14]. This design strategy is called bounded worse behavior (BWB). In this situation, the common approach is to consider a worst case strategy, in which the probability of false alarm is evaluated when the esti2 mated noise power assumes the lowest value min , while for the probability of 2 detection it assumes the highest value max . Then the corresponding design curve is given by DES 2 1 + Q -1 PFA max 2 DES min 1 + Q -1 PD

SNRmin,BWB

( (

) )

1 N 1 N

- 1

(3.21)

that gives raise to the SNR wall lim SNRmin,BWB =

2 max - 1 > 0 2 min

(3.22)

Due to the adoption of this design strategy and noise uncertainty model, an idea that is raised into the spectrum sensing community is that the SNR wall phenomenon is an unavoidable problem in practical applications.
3.3.3 Existence of the SNR Wall

Recently, it has been demonstrated that the SNR wall can be avoided if the ENP has a sufcient accuracy [10, 13]. In particular, the two conditions for avoiding the SNR wall are: 1. The correct statistic of the noise power estimator must be considered in the evaluation of the decision threshold. 2. The variance of the ENP must decrease faster then 1/N when the observation time grows. Note that, even if the second condition cannot be satised, the adoption of the correct statistical model of the problem allows to predict the correct value of the SNR wall. In a situation in which the two conditions above cannot be satised, the BWB approach is the unique solution; however, not only it always predicts the presence of the wall, but it also generally overestimates its value [10]. Indeed, as we can see from (3.22), in this case the SNR wall value 2 2 , max is determined by the choice of min .

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Cognitive Radio Techniques

As an example of ENP-ED, assume that M noise only samples, wn with n = 0,,M 1, are available at the receiver. Then we can adopt the maximum likelihood noise power estimator dened by
2

2 = Ts

M 1 n =0

[n] w[n]w

(3.23)

is 2/M. In this case, the design curve of the ENP-ED is The variance of given by [27] SNRmin,ENP ED
DES 2 1 + Q 1 PFA max 2 DES min 1 + Q 1 PD N +M NM N +M NM

(3.24)

It is easy to see that, in accordance to the condition ii, the SNR wall does not occur (i.e., limNSNRmin,ENPED = 0) only if M is an increasing function of N. Figure 3.3 shows and compares performance of an ideal ED and ENPDES DES ED with PFA = 0.1 and PD = 0.9. As can be seen, when M = N (the number of samples used to estimate noise power) is equal to the number of samples used for detection, the ENP-ED does not exhibit the SNR wall (according to conditionii) and the slope of the design curves is the same. In this situation, only a loss of around 1.5 dB, when N > 100, is noticeable. On the contrary, if M = 1000 is xed with respect to N, the SNR wall occurs. For comparison, the 2 2 corresponding BWB-ED design curve with = max / min = 1 dB is also shown. As can be seem, the BWB-based ED design may lead to an incorrect threshold design.

3.4 Spectrum Sensing with Cyclostationary Feature Detection

In wireless communications, the transmitted signals show very strong cy clostationary features based on the modulation type, carrier frequency, and data rate, especially when excess bandwidth is utilized. Therefore, identifying the unique set of features of a particular radio signal for a given wireless access system can be used to detect the system based on the cyclostationary analysis at the cognitive radio node. The cyclostationary feature analysis is a well developed and treated topic in the literature of signal processing [15,16].
3. These samples can be captured in a signal free time window or in a free frequency band.

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

57

In the context of cognitive radios, we consider using such analysis for spectrum sensing and primary user detection [1720], in which case some degree of source signal knowledge may be required. For a sufcient number of samples, this method can perform better than the energy-based detection method when the cyclostationary features are properly identied. However, the main drawback with this method is the complexity associated with it and the requirement for a large sample set for better estimation and precision ofthe features in the frequency domain. We present some of the fundamentals of cyclostationary feature analysis below and show how it can be used as a spectrum sensing technique to detect primary users in the environment for cognitive radio networks.
3.4.1 Cyclostationarity Analysis

A random process x(t) is classied as a wide sense cyclostationary process if the mean and autocorrelation are periodic in time with some period T, given by and Rx (t , ) = Rx (t + mT , ) = E[ x(t )x (t + )] (3.26) E x (t ) = E x (t + mT ) = E[ x (t )] (3.25)

where, t is the time variable, is the lag associated with the autocorrelation function, x (t ) is the complex conjugate of x(t), and m is an integer. The periodic autocorrelation function can be expressed in terms of the Fourier series given by where,
Rx ( ) = lim

Rx (t , ) =

=-

Rx ( )exp(2 j t )

(3.27)

T T T

x(t + )x (t - )exp( -2 j t )dt 2 2

(3.28)

The expression in (3.28) is known as the cycle autocorrelation. Using the Wiener relationship, we can dene the cyclic power spectrum (CPS) or the spectral correlation function as,
Sx (f )= - Rx ( )exp( - j 2 f )d

(3.29)

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Cognitive Radio Techniques

The CPS in (3.29) is a function of the frequency f and the cycle frequency and any cyclostationary features can be detected in the cyclic frequency domain a property that is exploited to be used as a spectrum sensing technique. An alternative expression for (3.28) for the ease of computing the CPS is given by
Sx ( f ) = lim lim

1 T0 T T0T

-T /2 XT (t , f
0

T0 / 2

1 1 T (t , f - )dt (3.30) )X

T (t , u ) is the complex conjugate of XT (t,u), and XT (t,u) is given by where, X XT (t , u ) =

t +T / 2 t -T / 2

x(v )exp( -2 j uv )dv

(3.31)

Expression in (3.30) is also known as the time-averaged CPS, which achieves the theoretical CPS when computed over a sufcient number of samples. Frequency-averaged CPS can also be derived similar to the time-averaged one as given in [21]. Let us observe some examples for the CPS. Figure 3.4 depicts a CPS plot for BPSK modulated signal estimated over 2,000 symbols at a signal

0.04

Sx

0.02 0 50 50 f(Hz) 0 0 50 50

(Hz)

Figure 3.4 C  yclic spectral density for BPSK with a signal to noise (power) ratio of 0 dB estimated over 2000 BPSK symbols.

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

59

0.06 0.04 0.02 0 50 0 50 50

Figure 3.5 C  yclic spectral density for BPSK with a signal to noise (power) ratio of 0 dB estimated over 20 BPSK symbols.

Sx

50 f(Hz) 0 (Hz)

to noise ratio of 0 dB. Figure 3.5 on the other hand depicts the same for an estimation over 20 BPSK symbols at the same signal-to-noise ratio level. These gures clearly show how the estimate of the CPS varies depending on the number of samples used, and we observe that with a poor estimate of the CPS noise can be seen at cyclic frequencies other than = 0 (Figure 3.5). With a better estimate of the CPS (Figure 3.4), we can clearly identify the cyclic frequency components and the additive noise component appearing at = 0. Therefore, using the CPS one could detect the presence of the primary user provided that the CPS is estimated properly. In the next section, we see how the CPS can be used to detect the presence of primary users by cognitive radios.
3.4.2 Cyclostationary Feature-Based Detector

In order to use the cyclostationary features to perform spectrum sensing in wireless communications, we can rewrite the hypothesis equation for the presence of a primary user signal considering the CPS as

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Cognitive Radio Techniques

H 0 : Sr ( f ) = S (f )

H1 : Sr ( f ) = Ss ( f ) + S ( f )

(3.32)

where, S ( f ) is the CPS of the additive noise (t), and Ss ( f ) is the CPS of the primary user signal s(t). Since (t) is not a cyclostationary process, the CPS of for 0 is zero. Based on this, we can derive the test statistic for the detector in the discrete domain as

, 0 f

Sr ( f )S r ( f )

(3.33)

where, S r ( f ) is the conjugate of Sr ( f ). The detector is then given by

0; d = 1;

<

(3.34)

An important point to note here is that one needs sufcient number of samples to get a good estimate of the CPS and hence this method is not so computationally efcient. Furthermore, when insufcient number of samples are used the detection performance will tend to get worse due to the poor estimate of the CPS. If the target (primary user) signal information is somewhat known a priori (such as the modulation type, code rate, symbol rate, etc.), then the test statistic in (3.33) may be simplied to search for specic values of corresponding to the target signal. For analog amplitude, phase and frequency modulated signals with a carrier frequency of f 0 the cyclic frequency components are observed at 2f 0, and for digital amplitude shift keying and (binary) phase shift keying signals with symbol rate 1/T0 and a carrier frequency of f 0 the cyclic frequency components are observed at k /T0 for k , k 0 and 2f 0 + k /T0 for "k . Therefore, if the primary user signal falls into one of the signal categories mentioned above, the cognitive radio device can use the signal information to compute its test statistic targeting the specic values of .

3.5 Spectrum Sensing with Matched Filter Detection

The matched lter detection based sensing is exactly the same as the traditional matched lter detection technique deployed in digital receivers. Obviously for match lter based spectrum sensing a complete knowledge

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques

t=T r(t) h(t) = s(T t)

61

Figure 3.6 Matched lter based spectrum sensing and detection of primary users.

of the primary user signal is required (such as the modulation format data rate, carrier frequency, pulse shape, etc). The matched lter detection technique is a very well-treated topic in literature, and therefore, we just present the fundamental results on matched lter detection in this section. Given a real transmit signal waveform s(t) dened over 0 t T the corresponding matched lter maximizing the signal to noise ratio at the output of the lter sampler is given by s(T - t ); 0 t T (3.35) h(t ) = 0; elsewhere Figure 3.6 depicts matched lter based spectrum sensing method for primary user detection. Considering that a complete signal information of the primary user signal is required in this case the matched lter method is not really recommended by the system designers to suit our purpose here unless when the complete signal information is known to the secondary user. Then based on the test statistic (nT) at the output of the lter sampled every t = nT seconds, the detector is given by 0; (nT ) < d (nT ) = (3.36) 1; (nT ) The matched lter-based detector gives better detection probability compared to the previously discussed methods using the energy detector and the cyclostationary feature based detector; however as mentioned, it requires complete signal information and needs to perform the entire receiver operations (such as synchronization, demodulation, etc.) in order to detect the signal.

3.6 Other Spectrum Sensing Techniques

Many techniques have been proposed in literature, apart from the ones mentioned before in this chapter. In the rest of this section, we present some of the other known techniques for spectrum sensing and primary user detection in cognitive radio applications.

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3.6.1 Covariance-Based Method

The covariance of wireless signals and the additive noise component are generally different. The difference therefore is used to detect the presence of a wireless signal by distinguishing from the noise signal. Zeng and Liang [22] have proposed test statistics derived from the sample covariance matrix of the received signal to perform signal detection. The sample covariance of the received discrete signal r[n] is given by R(0) R (1) ( u , v ) = RL . R (L - 1) R (1) R (2) . R (L - 2) R(L -1) R(L -2) .. R(0)

(3.37)

and for a sample size of N the elements of the sample covariance matrix are given by R (l ) = 1 N
N -1 n =0

[n - l ] for r[n]r

l = 0,1,, L - 1

(3.38)

In the absence of a primary user signal (under hypothesis H0), the non L is theoretically zero, whereas diagonalelement of the covariance matrix R the diagonal elements contain the noise power. In the presence of a primary user signal (under hypothesis H1), the nondiagonal elements would become nonzero, and thus using this property of the covariance matrix, one could detect the presence of the primary user signal. Based on this, Zeng and Liang [22] have proposed the following test statistics given by T1 = T2 = 1 L L (u , v ) | |R L u =1 v =1 L 1 L (u , u ) | |R L u =1 L (3.39)

and the detection criteria to make the decisions d to decide on H0 or H1 is given by 0; decide on H 0 ; d = 1; decide on H1 ; if T1/T2 < if T1 /T2 (3.40)

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As per the above-mentioned detection mechanism, it is assumed that the sensed wireless signals are correlated such that the resulting covariance matrix is not diagonal when signal is present (under hypothesis H1).
3.6.2 Eigenvalue-Based Method

The eigenvalue-based method for spectrum sensing and detection is also based on the computation of the covariance matrix of the sensed signal [22]. The eigenvalues of the covariance matrix are computed, and in turn, are used to compute the test statistic as given in [22]. Two test statistics are proposed by Zeng and Liang based on the maximum (max) and the minimum (min) eigenvalues. The rst test statistic is given by T = max 1 min (3.41)

known as the max-min eigenvalue (MME) technique for some threshold 1, and T = min (3.42)

known as the energy with minimum eigenvalue (EME) technique for some threshold 2, where is the energy of the sensed signal. The detection methods based on the test statistics above do not require the knowledge of the noise power but are based purely on the sensed signal itself, thus considered to be fully blind sensing techniques.
3.6.3 Wavelet-Based Edge Detection

The wavelet transform was proposed for spectrum sensing for detecting edges in a wideband spectrum in the frequency domain for detecting one or more narrowband users [23]. Wavelets transforms in general are used to detect irregularities/singularities in the power spectral density and thus proposed to be used for detecting spectral irregularities or in other words varying power levels in the spectral bands over a wide portion of the spectrum. This method is well suited especially for ultrawideband based cognitive radios that has a frequency band allocation from 3GHz 10GHz with many narrowband incumbent and other users lying within such as WiMAX, C-band satellite, S-band satellite, Wi-Fi, and DECT. Figure 3.7 depicts the edge detection graphically considering a wide portion of the spectra. The wavelet detection

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Edges

f(Hz)
Figure 3.7 C  oncept of edge detection of narrowband spectral bands using wavelet transforms.

method avoids the requirement to have complex bandpass architectures in the receiver for detecting narrowband users for wideband sensing; however, it requires high sampling rate when operating the discrete domain.
3.6.4 Spectral Estimation Methods

Traditional spectral estimation methods can also be used for spectrum sensing and detection in cognitive radio networks [24, 25]. Parametric and nonparametric techniques exist in literature for spectral analysis and estimation. The former method requires a well-dened model for the sensed signal to get good results and thus is not much considered in cognitive radio applications. The nonparametric method is therefore considered to be suitable for spectrum sensing in cognitive radios which we briey present here. We mainly consider two nonparametric methods, rst the multitaper method [26, 27], and second the lter bank based method [28].
3.6.4.1 Multitaper Method

In the multitaper methodwhere taper indicating the windowing function of the signal samplesorthonormal Slepian sequences are considered for the tapers. The Slepian sequences have a distinguished property where most of the energy of its Fourier transforms have their energy within a given frequency band for a nitie sample size. This allows one to trade the spectral resolution for reduced variance of the spectral estimate without leaking signal energy into adjacent bands. This, therefore, is considered to be a well-suited technique for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks.

Introduction to Spectrum Sensing Techniques 3.6.4.2 Filter Bank Method

65

In the lter bank method, a set of bandpass lters with low side-lobes are used to estimate the signal spectra. This is a very conventional method for spectral estimation and could also possibly used for spectrum sensing in cognitive radios. The major disadvantage of this method is obviously the requirement for many bandpass lters in the receiver; on the other hand, considering multicarrier communications with lter bank structure in the receivers this method could be conveniently utilized for spectrum sensing without any additional requirements.

3.7 Summary
Spectrum sensing for cognitive radio networks is a very popular topic and many basic techniques that are seen in the literature were presented in this chapter. The presented techniques vary from blind methods, such as the energy detector method, to partial context aware methods, such as the cyclostationary feature detector method, and all the way to complete context aware methods, such as the matched lter detection method. The energy detector is the simplest and is optimal for uncorrelated signal samples with Gaussian distribution. The knowledge of the noise power is also required to get improved detection performance for the energy detector; when the noise power is not known precisely, the energy detector performance is limited by the SNR wall [12]. The covariance and the eigenvalue based methods are more suitable for detecting wireless signals, considering the signals are correlated in nature. The cyclostationary feature-based method has better detection performance than the energy-based method, given that the cyclic features are estimated properly, which requires larger set of samples. Given the short falls of the spectrum sensing methods presented in this chapter, various other strategies are the topics of the next few chapters.

References
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