Probability-Based Combination for Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks

To take advantage of time-varying spectrum opportunities, a cognitive radio (CR) network monitors the dynamic usage of the licensed band through cooperative spectrum sensing. In this paper, we propose a probability-based scheme for combination of spectrum sensing information collected from several CR users. Different from conventional cooperative spectrum sensing schemes that assume synchronous local sensing information, our scheme enables combination of both synchronous and asynchronous sensing information by utilizing the statistics of licensed band occupancy. In our scheme, the amount of information from each CR user is flexible and a simplified implementation is also feasible under a symmetrical case. Simulation results demonstrate that our scheme is robust and superior in terms of detection performance.