Cooperative Covariance and Eigenvalue Based Detections for Robust Sensing

Spectrum sensing is a fundamental problem in cognitive radio. As a result, it has been reborn as a very active research area in recent years despite its long history. Although various sensing methods have been proposed, their robustness at very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and uncertain noise/interference environment is generally not satisfactory. In this paper, the concept of robust sensing is discussed first. Subsequently the cooperative covariance and eigenvalue based detections are proposed for robust spectrum sensing. It is proved mathematically that under some conditions the proposed methods are robust to uncertain and unpredictable noise and interference. The performances of the methods are also verified by simulations.