A Novel Sequential Spectrum Sensing Method via Stochastic Resonance

As spectrum sensing detects the presence of primary user (PU) signal, an efficient and reliable spectrum sensing scheme plays a critical role in cognitive radio (CR). In this paper, a novel spectrum sensing method via stochastic resonance (SR) under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is presented. It is shown that the introducing of suitable additional noise can enhance sequential energy detector (SED). Theoretical analysis and the optimal SR noise probability distribution function (PDF) are given. Simulation results show that in comparison with traditional sequential energy detection, our method delivers considerable reduction on the average sample number (ASN), while maintaining a comparable detection performance under low SNR.