A Comparison between Stand-Alone and Distributed Architectures for Spectrum Hole Detection

In this paper two different cognitive radio architectures, i.e. stand-alone and distributed, are proposed for spectrum sensing purposes. In particular, both architectures implement a fast and reliable algorithm based on cyclic features extraction which allows to identify spectrum holes. The performances of such systems are compared in detecting primary users´ presence in a monitored area classifying the used transmission standards, IEEE 802.11a and IEEE 802.16e. The considered scenario is challenging since both standards use the OFDM transmission technique, are designed to have the same bandwidth and use the same frequency band. A set of numerical simulations have been carried out to compare the performances of the proposed systems in a heavy multipath scenario and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed.