Cognitive Radio: Methods for the Detection of Free Bands

In contrast to current systems where the spectrum allocation is static, future cognitive radio devices will be able to seek and use in a dynamic way the frequencies for network access; this will be done by autonomous detection of vacant bands in the radio spectrum. Many of the cognitive systems use highly complex algorithms for enabling dynamic spectrum access. With a variety of hardware systems available to run these algorithms, it is becoming necessary to have a common interface to the software defined radio. In order to meet the growing demands for interoperability, this article proposes a workflow for developing new software defined radio platforms. In this article, we are interested in various methods of detection of a signal embedded in the noise by specifying their advantages and their drawbacks.