Evaluation of Different Energy Based Spectrum Sensing Approaches in Cognitive Radio System: Practical Perspective

Cognitive Radio (CR) is a modern trend of wireless communication with goal to achieve higher frequency utilization and overcome the problem of spectrum vacancy. Spectrum sensing is the basic step in CR, which enables it to distinguish spectrum states (idle or busy). In this paper a review and evaluation of different Energy Detection (ED) based spectrum sensing approaches are presented. Conventional Energy Detector (CED) and Double Threshold Energy Detector (DTED) have been introduced in this evaluation. The evaluation mechanism represents Receiver Operation Characteristic (ROC) of each approach, as well as the logical design of each approach. Finally, a proposed modification has been done on DTED method to enhance its performance. We named it MDTED. The simulation results showed that MDETD method has improved performance compared to DTED method at low SNR values less than -3 dB.