Cooperative spectrum sensing optimization through maximizing the network utility and minimizing the error probability

This paper deals with the conventional energy detection based cooperative spectrum sensing to overcome the problems of shadowing/fading and noise uncertainty of wireless channels. In cooperative spectrum sensing several cognitive radios cooperatively detect the unused frequency slots. We investigate the optimum voting rule as half voting rule also called majority rule in `n out of K´ rules and optimal number of cognitive radios with an aim to maximize the network utility function and minimize the error probability. The optimal conditions have been verified through simulation results over an AWGN channel and it is concluded that `majority rule´ outperforms the `AND rule´ and `OR rule´ in maximizing the utility function and minimizing the error probability.