Spectrum Sensing Performance in TV Bands using the Multitaper Method

Frequency agile radios perform opportunistic spectrum sharing by detecting unused spectrum and dynamically tuning to the available bands. To reduce harmful interference to the primary users of the spectrum, highly sensitive detectors are required. We apply the multitaper spectral estimation method to the problem of spectrum sensing in TV bands. We compare the performance of the multitaper method with that of conventional FFT-based spectrum estimation, using real signal measurements. Our results show that the multitaper approach yields a significant increase in the number of harvested channels, while maintaining a smaller probability of false alarm.