Cooperative spectrum sensing over unreliable reporting channel

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how unreliable reporting channels affect cooperative spectrum sensing in cognitive radio systems, focusing on the impact of decision fusion rules under channel errors.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of the impact of reporting channel unreliability on the performance of cooperative spectrum sensing with n-out-of-K decision rules.

Findings

Reporting channel errors degrade sensing performance

Optimal n depends on channel reliability

Performance analysis guides system design

Abstract

This article aims to analyze a cooperative spectrum sensing scheme using a centralized approach with unreliable reporting channel. The spectrum sensing is applied to a cognitive radio system, where each cognitive radio performs a simple energy detection and send the decision to a fusion center through a reporting channel. When the decisions are available at the fusion center, a n-out-of-K rule is applied. The impact of the choice of the parameter n in the cognitive radio system performance is analyzed in the case where the reporting channel introduces errors.