Detection of broadcast signals in cognitive radio based PLC using the FCME algorithm

Today, and especially in the future, there is an increasing need for complementary techniques to meet the growing capacity requirements of wireless communications. A high data rate connection with power line communication (PLC) is one attractive solution to achieve this need. One way to improve the data rates obtained in PLC networks is to increase the used bandwidth and operate at higher frequencies. At the same time, however, it should be kept in mind that the power lines, unfortunately, act as quite good antennas which can detect strong near-by FM and TV signals. In the future, the PLC frequency range can overlap with the broadcasting frequency bands resulting in interference for these transmissions and vice versa. With the static notching the whole FM-frequency band is notched during the PLC communication. This may result in inefficient spectrum utilization as in a given place and at a given time only a part of the FM-frequency band may be occupied. In this paper, a blind spectrum sensing algorithm based on forward consecutive mean excision (FCME) algorithm is proposed to locate the free frequency bands inside the broadcasting frequency range in PLC-network. The performance of this sensing algorithm is analyzed using spectrum analyzer measurement results and calculations in the broadcasting frequency range. The results verify that the proposed method performs well when detecting free frequency bands in broadcasting frequency band providing means for better spectrum utilization in PLC-network.