Non-Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Based on Cyclostationary Model of Digital Signals in the Context of Cognitive Radio

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of the opportunistic spectrum access in Cognitive Radio. Indeed, most spectrum sensing algorithms suffer from a high computational cost to achieve the detection process. They need a prior knowledge of signal characteristics and present a bad performance in low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) environment. The choice of the optimal detection threshold is another issue for these spectrum sensing algorithms. To overcome the limits of spectrum detectors, we propose in this paper, a blind detection method based on the cyclostationary features of communication signals. Our detector evaluates the level of hidden periodicity contained in the observed signal to make decision on the state of a bandwidth. In order to reduce the computational cost, we take advantage of the FFT Accumulation Method to estimate the cyclic spectrum of the observed signal. Then, we generate the Cyclic Domain Profile of the cyclic spectrum which allows us to evaluate the level of the hidden periodicity in the signal. This level of periodicity is quantified through the crest factor of Cyclic Domain Profile, which represents the decision statistic of the proposed detector. We have established the analytic expression of the optimal threshold of the detection and the probability of detection to evaluate the performance of the proposed detector. Simulation results show that the proposed detector is able to detect the presence of a communication signal on a bandwidth in a very low SNR scenario.