Agile hierarchical cluster structure-based cooperative spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks

Striking a balance between detection performance and overhead in cooperative spectrum sensing is a very critical design factor. For a conventional cluster-based spectrum sensing (CBSS) algorithms, all cognitive radios (CRs) in one cluster forward their local decisions through only one channel which leads to incur large sensing overhead. In this work the multi-levels hierarchical cluster-based spectrum sensing (MH-CBSS) algorithm is used to investigate sensing agility and total energy consumption. Simulation results show that the MHCBSS algorithm provides higher sensing agility and consumes less energy than that consumed by the conventional CBSS algorithm.