2011 Cross Strait Quad-Regional Radio Science and Wireless Technology Conference

A Survey of Cluster-Based Cooperative Spectrum

Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks
Long Wang, Jinlong Wang, Guoru Ding, Fei Song and Qihui Wu
Institute of Communications Engineering
PLA University of Science and Technology
Nanjing, P.R China
wanglong127@gmail.com, guoru ding@yeah.net, wqhqhw@163.com
_

Abstract Cooperative spectrum sensing plays a very important

role in the research of cognitive network due to its ability on
improving sensing performance especially in the fading and
shadowing channel. Combining the clustering technique,
cooperative spectrum sensing can improve the performance and
reduce the computational cost. In recent years, many methods of
cooperative spectrum sensing have been proposed based on the
clustering technique, which can be classified into 3 categories. In
this paper, we provide a review of cluster-based cooperative
spectrum sensing and introduce the existing methods.

there are several drawbacks in the conventional scheme we

can't ignore:

Keywords-cluster;

radio networks

cooperative

I.

spectrum

sensing;

Due to fading, the channels between the CR users and

CRBS are not reliable. As a result, reporting errors are
inevitable.

The global decision may not apply to all the CR users

in the situation in which CR users are distributed in
different spectral circumstance.

cognitive

Reporting to CRBS consumes large amount of energy

and introduces control and transmission overhead.

INTRODUCTION
Primnry

Recent years have seen intense competition for spectrum

usage. Statistics from Federal Communication Commission

cr

(FCC) tell us that the utilization of licensed spectrum is rela

tively low, only ranges from 15% to 85% [1]. Cognitive radio
(CR), introduced by Mitola [2], is viewed as a possible solution
to the problem of radio spectrum congestion. A CR user (CRU)
is able to sense the environment, find and make use of
unoccupied spectrum.
Spectrum

sensing

IS

an

important

phase

during

the

utilization of unoccupied spectrum. Some basic spectrum

sensing methods such as energy detection, matched filter
detection and cyclostationary detection [3] have been proposed
for a single CR user to detect the Primary User (PU).
Compared with energy detection, matched filter detection and

CRBS

cyclostationary detection require priori information of the

primary users to operate efficiently, which is hard to realize
practically since primary users differ in different situation.
Energy detection is not optimal but simple to implement, so it
is widely adopted.

Figure I.

In order to support data fusion through efficient network

organization, CR users can be distributed into some small

The sensing performance of a single CR user is not always

groups called clusters. Each cluster has a coordinator called

good, it could be severely affected by propagation effects such

as fading and shadowing. Cooperative spectrum sensing has
been proposed to overcome this problem and improve the
sensing performance. The structure of the conventional scheme
is illustrated in Fig. 1. Conventionally, cooperative spectrum is
coordinated by the Cognitive Radio Base Station (CRBS).
Firstly, CR users conduct spectrum sensing independently. And
then, they report their observations to CRBS. Finally, CRBS
gives a global decision by some fusion schemes. However,

978-1-4244-9793-5/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

The general model of conventional cooperative spectrum sensing

schemes

Cluster Head (CH) and the other CR users are cluster members.
The spectrum sensing is performed on a hierarchical structure,
through two levels of CR users cooperation. The low level one
is conducted within the cluster and the high level one is
executed among CHs.
The benefits we can get by adopting cluster structure
operative spectrum sensing list as follows:

247

July 26-30,

co

2011

Sensing performance improvement: we can improve

the detection probability or decrease the error
probability so that more reliable sensing results are
acquired.

Sensing

overhead

reduction:

Sensing

including energy consumption, time

bandwidth occupation can be reduced.

III.

SPECTRUM SENSING SCHEMES

The cooperative spectrum sensing schemes base on cluster

technique can be classified according to their objectives. In this
paper, we group the proposed schemes into three categories, as
shown in Fig. 3. Most of the schemes focus on either clustering

overhead

delay

CLASSIFICATION OF CLUSTER BASED COOPERATIVE

and

part or fusion part of the sensing process. We analyze how

these schemes achieve their objectives: through reasonable
clustering criterions or through proper fusion methods.

Clustering technique is widely used in the research of ad

hoc network. It has been proved that clustering technique
could reduce channel contention and packet collisions, leading

A.

to better network throughput under high load. Additionally,

Performance improvement-oriented schemes

A good sensing performance is very important to CR net

works since that primary user's tolerance of interference from

energy efficiency could be achieved at the same time [4].

However, until now there are no overviews about cluster based

CR users is limited. Sensing performance is usually measured

by [5]

cooperative spectrum sensing scheme. In this article, we

present a comprehensive survey of several cluster based

QJ =P(u= IIHo)
Qd =P(u= IIH,)
Qm =P(u=OIH1)=1-Qd

cooperative spectrum sensing schemes.

II.

GENERAL SYSTEM MODEL

lu

'ern

Figure 3.

QJ ,Qd and Qm

Classification of the schemes

denote the false alarm probability, the

detection probability and the missing probability, respectively.

HI and HO denote the presence and absence of the primary user,
respectively. u denotes the sensing result. u=1 and u=O means
CR users decide the primary user is present and absent,
Figure

2.

respectively. The higher

The general model of cluster-based cooperative spectrum sensing

schemes

QJ

is, the more opportunities CR

users lose to use the unoccupied spectrum. In contrast, the

higher

Fig. 2 shows the general system model of cluster based

cooperative sensing scheme. There is one primary user, one

Qd

is, the less interference CR users may cause to

primary user. Consequently, low

CRBS and several CR users distributed randomly. The CR

QJ

and high

Qd

means

excellent sensing performance.

users suffer different fading characteristics and have various

Qd 1 and QJ 0 at the same time.

However, Qd and QJ are positively correlated in practical. So

reporting channel gain. Generally, the CR users in the same

Ideally, we hope

cluster are close enough to each other so that the channel

between them can be regarded as perfect.

TABLE I. SUMMARY OF CLUSTER-BASED COOPERATIVE SPECTRUM SENSING SCHEMES

improving the sensing performance means pursuing a higher

Objectives
Performance improvement-oriented schemes
Overhead reduction-oriented schemes
Combined-metrics-based schemes

Utilizing the user selection diversity or finding a proper fusion scheme for clustering architecture to
improve the performance of cooperative spectrum sensing.
Applying clustering architecture to cooperative spectrum sensing schemes for the sake of reducing
sensing overhead including energy consumption, time cost and bandwidth occupation.
Balancing the tradeoff between sensing performance and sensing overhead to reach a compromise.

248

Qd

when given the value of

Qf'

the set of cluster centers through maxlmlzmg the distance

between cluster centers. Then CR users join the nearest cluster.

or try to achieve a lower

Qf versus a fixed Qd .

When the clustering is finished, the CRBS starts to conduct the

locating scheme aimed at figuring out the location of the
primary user in every cluster. The scheme selects the first N
CR users who receive more energy in the same cluster to

In cluster based cooperative spectrum sensing scheme, we

can utilize the user selection diversity in the hierarchical struc
ture, choosing the most favorable cluster member as the clus
ter head to improve the sensing performance [6],[7]. Further
more, clustering can be conducted base on the geographical
position [ 8] or spectrum environment [9] of the CR users,
which leads to more accurate sensing results.

cooperate to locate the primary user. And the primary user's

location is the weighted average of the N CR users' location.
The CR user which is closer to the primary user is supposed to
receive larger signal power and vise versa. So the more power
the i-th CR user receives, the larger weight it will be allocated.
Liu's idea is intuitive and the algorithm is effective. However,
it demands that geographic information and the amount of
energy, which is difficult to acquire accurately in practical.

When clustering has been done by using some distributed

or centralized clustering algorithm, sensing performance im
provement can be acquired through using a proper fusion
scheme according to the given system model. [10], [12], [13]
focus on the fusion phase of cooperation spectrum sensing, try

3) Kim's MCMG (Multi-Cluster Multi-Group) algorithm

[lOJ, Shen's algorithm [IIJ and Duan' algorithm [I2J

to use some hierarchical structure based fusion scheme to

When clustering has been done, the sensing performance

improve the sensing performance.

1)

depends heavily on the fusion scheme. MCMG [10] considers

the problem that CR users even in the same cluster may suffer
different fading characteristics and divides CR users into some
groups having the identical fading characteristics. By applying
k-out-of-N fusion rule to the data fusion among groups in the

Sun's algorithm [7Jand Lee's algorithm[6J

Both Sun's algorithm [7] and Lee's algorithm [6] utilize the
user selection diversity in the situation where the reporting
channels are subjected to fading. The clustering has been done
by some distributed algorithms, and the CR user with the

same cluster, an optimal number of groups which minimizes

the error rate of a cluster is obtained. Shen [11] ameliorates the
soft fusion and hard fusion scheme according to the

largest reporting channel gain is chosen as the cluster head to

collect observations from cluster members within the same
cluster and forward them to the CRBS. By using this technique,
the reporting errors caused by fading can be reduced and thus
we can enhance the global sensing performance.

hierarchical architecture and proposes an optimal soft fusion

scheme and a double-threshold strategy to satisfY the
bandwidth constraints of the control channels and the spectrum
sensing agility requirement. Duan [12] combines the softened
two-bit hard combination and clustering approaches in his
algorithm, which utilizes the merits from both methods and has
a good tradeoff between detection performance and complexity.

In Sun's algorithm, cluster structure is combined with de

cision fusion and energy fusion respectively. Both analytical
and simulation results show that the proposed cluster-based
cooperative spectrum sensing scheme acquires considerable
sensing performance improvement.

There exist three thresholds and 4 energy regions in the

softened hard scheme. In addition, different weights are
allocated to these 4 regions thus the energy information can be
explored sufficiently at the CRBS. As a result, the sensing
performance is improved significantly.

Lee introduces clustering technique into their previous

work, weighted-cooperative sensing scheme, to enhance the
sensing performance. Based on aggregated decision infor
mation from CHs, the CRBS assigns the dynamic weight fac
tor to different subjects based on their contributions to en

B.

Generally, sensing overhead in the cooperative spectrum

sensing scheme includes energy consumptions, time costs and
band occupation. Energy efficiency is an important topic in
cooperative spectrum sensing because in most cases CR users
are battery-operated mobile terminals. In the conventional

hance weighting function. As a result, we can see remarkable

performance improvement when the set of CR users in each
cluster suffer the different channel environment.

2)

Overhead reduction-oriented schemes

Liu's algorithm [8J and Akhtar's algorithm [9J

The system model with multiple primary users is studied in

cooperative spectrum sensing scheme, every CR user reports its

observations to CRBS independently. As a result, the life-time
of the CR network is shortened greatly. Besides Energy
efficiency, agility is also important to CR network. In order to

[ 8], [9]. The spectral environment becomes more complex

when multiple primary uses are present. Assume that CR user
CRI are closed to primary user PUI and CR2 are closed to
PU2, but CRI is far away from CR2. In this situation,

reduce interference to primary user caused by CR users, we

cooperation between CRI and CR2 is useless since that they

hope that the detection time of CR users could be as short as

possible. Furthermore, a double thresholds fusion scheme is
employed in the cluster for the sake of reducing the transmis
sion data and saving the bandwidth [16]. There is a no deci
sion region in the middle of the other two detection regions. If
received energy falls into the no decision region, CR users
don't give any decision.

are

in

different

spectral

environment.

Therefore,

in

the

situation that there are multiple primary users in the cognitive

network, clustering should base on the similarity of CR users'
spectral environment or the geographical position to obtain
good cooperative spectrum sensing performance.
Liu's algorithm consists of two parts: clustering scheme and
locating scheme. With the prior geographic information, the
CRBS carries out the Iterative clustering algorithm to group the
CR users into some clusters. Firstly, the algorithm tries to find

1) Gong's HSSN (Hierarchical Spectrum Sharing Network)

algorithm[13J andXia's algorithm[14J

249

It is known that long-distance signal transmission consumes

1) Deng's wide-band C-JCS (clustering-based joint

compressive sensing) algorithm [17J

proposed HSSN algorithm based on a hybrid model in which

multiple primary uses are considered. In addition, for the sake

Until now, most of the spectrum sensing approaches are

of decreasing reporting distance, CR users close to CRBS

narrowband-based and their efficiency is low. Wide-band

report to it directly while CR users far away from CRBS form

spectrum sensing is a promising technique to replace the nar

clusters and the data is forwarded to CRBS in a multi-hop way.

Gong introduces a symbol a , the degree of correlation, to
denote the spectral similarity of a cluster. The higher

Combined-metrics-based schemes

C.

larger amount of energy than that of short-distance. Gong

is, the

rowband-based approaches.

C-JCS

combines

data-fusion

with

jointly

architecture

hierarchical
compressive

reconstruction technology by Compressive Sensing (CS) theo

less energy is consumed in transmitting data to cluster head

ry to realize the wide-band spectrum sensing. CS theory [21]

because members in the cluster are closer to cluster head. For

shows that by adopting a special sensing matrix to clear the

reducing energy consumption, a distributed clustering scheme

redundant information in sparse signal, it can accurately or

is proposed based on the degree of correlation between the

near accurately reconstruct the original signal with a much

spectrum of CR users. The CR users with high spectral

lower sampling ratio compared with that of Nyquist sampling

correlation are grouped into one cluster to perform cooperative

theorem. It means that we can relieve the data fusion center

sensing. In [14]. Xia models the energy consumption of a CR

from the heavy pressure of computation and sensing agility

user during the sensing and reporting process and draws

can be acquired with high sensing reliability. Simulation

conclusions that to keep the sensing accuracy and reduce the

results show that compared with independent compressive

energy consumption,

sensing (ICS) and joint compressive sensing (JCS) scheme, C

the better way is

to decrease the

reporting energy consumption. The application of cluster

JCS can sense the wide-band spectrum with high agility

architecture makes the reporting distance shorter compared

accurately.

with the conventional scheme since CR users report to CH

instead of CRBS.

To save energy consumption

2)

further,

Guo's algorithm [J8J

It is obvious that sensing overhead is related to the number

scheduled time slots are introduced to control channel. Cluster

of clusters. Simulation shows that there is a tradeoff between

heads remain sleeping until the time slots for collecting and

the number of clusters and the detection performance in the

reporting decision of themselves come. However, additional

cluster based cooperative spectrum sensing scheme.

time delay may be brought at the same time.

The

tradeoff is taken as an optimization problem and the optimal

2) Wei's STSC (Sensing Time Saving Cluster-Based)

algorithm [15J

cluster number is obtained. Base on the optimal cluster

In conventional schemes, the CH has to fuse the sensing

according to the received signal power (RSP) from the CH.

number, the CR users are divided into several clusters

data from all the cluster members which is time-consuming

CR users choose the closest CH to join it according to the RSP.

and inefficient considering that the reliability of the sensing

As a result, clusters are more balanced and the nodes in the

data from different CR users are various. If we can get the

same cluster are closer. That means the sensing performance

decision from a fraction of reliable data, the sensing agility

can be improved.

and

energy

efficiency

could

be

acquired.

Wei's

STSC

3)

algorithm takes the detecting SNR diversity of CR users into

Qi's algorithm [29J

Qi applies different fusion schemes in the sensing process.

account and reduces the sensing time through decreasing the

Soft fusion scheme outperforms hard fusion scheme because

sample size. CR users are divided into several clusters using

more information are provided for making decision. However,

an iterative

the

significant overhead is introduced in conventional soft fusion

reporting channel gain. The CR user with the largest reporting

algorithm

based

on received

SNR and

schemes. To achieve a good tradeoff between performance

channel gain is selected as CH. Then the CH chooses its

and overhead, clustering and softened hard combination

cluster members in descending order according to detecting

method [22] are combined together. The sensing scheme

SNR. Repeat these two steps in the rest CR users that haven't

reduce the reporting errors caused by the fading channel

joint any cluster until all CR users joint one cluster. In the

through clustering and employ both soft fusion EGC (equal

sensing and fusion phase, both CHs and CRBS accumulate the

gain combination) and two bit hard fusion scheme to improve

LLR (Log-Likelihood Radio) statistics from cluster members

the sensing performance and reduce the overhead.

or CHs respectively, and compares to the two thresholds to

4) CHESS (Clustered Hybrid Energy-aware cooperative

Spectrum Sensing) algorithm [20J

determine whether make a decision or wait for the next LLR

to repeat the test. For the sake of saving sensing time, the CH

CHESS tries to enhance the sensing reliability and energy

with the largest LLR has priority to report to CRBS. Simula

efficiency of the CR network. There are three states of the CR

tion shows that STSC algorithm can reduce sensing time by

network in CHESS algorithm: training, clustering and activity.

decreasing the sample size. Especially in the low average

detecting SNR situation, the sample number can be decreased

up to 80%.

Training - time in this state is divided into some slots

in which every CR user conducts sensing, reporting,
and compares the majority decision with its individual
one. Finally, every CR user obtains a reliability
parameter R.

250

Clustering - the selection of CHs and the formation of

clusters are conducted by a distributed algorithm
proposed in this paper. The CR user who has enough
energy and high sensing reliability is selected as CH

[6]

Jookwan Lee, Youngmin Kim, Sunghwan Sohn, Jaemoung Kim,

"Weighted-Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme using Clustering in
Cognitive Radio Systems", Advanced Communication Technology,
2008. ICACT 2008. 10th International Conference on, Feb. 2008, pp.
786-790.

and the left CR users join the nearest CH.

[7]

Chunhua Sun, Wei Zhang, and Khaled Ben Letaief, "Cluster-Based

Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Systems",
Communications, 2007. ICC '07. IEEE International Conference on,
June 2007, pp.2511-2515.

[8]

Jingdi Liu, Xin Zhang, Ruiming Zheng, Qun Pan and Dacheng Yang,
"Novel Cooperative Schemes on Spectrum Sensing in Multi-primary
user Cognitive Radio Network", Vehicular Technology Conference
(VTC 201O-Spring), May. 2010, pp. 1-5.

[9]

Rizwan Akhtar, Adnan Rashdi and Abdul Ghafoor, "Grouping

Technique for Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radios",
Cognitive Radio and Advanced Spectrum Management, 2009. CogART
2009. Second International Workshop on, May 2009, pp.80-85.

Activity - cluster members send their data to CH at the

intra-cluster power level. CH forwards data received
from cluster members to CRBS at full power.
Additionally, only the CHS who satisfy the reliability
and energy constrains carry out sensing and reporting
their decision to CRBS. If one CH's energy or sensing
reliability can't meet the demand, a new cluster
formation process is triggered.

Simulation results show that the CHESS algorithm im

[10] Wonsop Kim*, Hyoungsuk Jeon, Sooyeol 1m, and Hyuckjae Lee,
"Optimization of Multi-Cluster Multi-Group based Cooperative Sensing
in Cognitive Radio Networks", MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS
CONFERENCE, 2010 - MILCOM 2010, Nov. 2010, pp. 1211-1216.

proves both network lifetime and sensing accuracy.

IV.

CONCLUSION AND FurURE DIRECTION

[11] Bin Shen, Chengshi Zhao, Zheng Zhou, "User Clusters Based
Hierarchical Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio
Networks", Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and
Communications, 2009. CROWNCOM '09. 4th International Conference
on, June 2009.

In this paper, a comprehensive overview is given on the

topic of cluster-based cooperative sensing schemes. Firstly, we
summarized

the

general

model

of

cooperative

spectrum

sensing in the existing work. Then, we provided fundamental

was

[12] Jiaqi Duan, Yong Li, "A Novel Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme
Based on Clustering and Softened Hard Combination", Wireless
Communications, Networking and Information Security (WCNIS), 2010
IEEE International Conference on, June 2010, pp. 183-187.

Most of the existing schemes assume that clustering has

been done by upper layers and there is little work upon the
clustering algorithms considering the heterogeneous spectrum

[13] Lei Gong, Jie Chen, Wanbin Tang, Shaoqian Li, "Application of
clustering structure in the hierarchical spectrum sharing network based
on cognitive radio", Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and
Communications, 2008. CrownCom 2008. 3rd International Conference
on, May 2008.

concepts about sensing performance and sensing overhead.

Meanwhile, we classified the 16 schemes into 3 categories
according

to

their

objectives and

detailed

analysis

presented about these schemes.

environment of large-scale CR network. Future work should

pay more attention to the clustering algorithms suitable for CR

[14] Wenfang Xia, Shu Wang, Wei Liu, Wenqing Cheng, "Cluster-based
Energy Efficient Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radios",
Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing, 2009.
WiCom '09. 5th International Conference on, Sept. 2009.

networks. Meanwhile, the mobility of the CR users which is

one of the most important characteristic of the CR network is
not considered in the existing work. And the existing schemes

[15] Dong Wei; Chunyan Feng; Caili Guo, "A Sensing Time Saving Cluster
Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme", Communication
Technology (ICCT), 2010 12th IEEE International Conference on, Nov.
2010, pp. 1244-1247.

are all centralized. Distributed network is more flexible and

robust than centralized one. Cluster-based mobile CR networks
without CRBS and/or CHs may be one of the future research
directions.

[16] Zhiquan Bai, Li Wang, Haixia Zhang, and Kyungsup Kwak, "Cluster
Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive Radio under
BandwidthConstraints", Communication Systems (ICCS), 2010 IEEE
International Conference on, Nov. 2010, pp. 569 - 573.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work is supported by the national basic research

program (973) of China under grant no.2009CB320400 and the
national science foundation under grant no. 60932002.

[17] Fan Deng, Fanzi Zeng, Renfa Li, "Clustering-based Compressive Wide
band Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Network", Mobile Ad-hoc
and Sensor Networks, 2009. MSN '09. 5th International Conference on,
Dec. 2009, pp. 218 - 222.

REFERENCES

[18] Chen Guo, Tao Peng , Shaoyi Xu , Haiming Wang and Wenbo Wang,
"Cooperative Spectrum Sensing with Cluster-Based Architecture in
Cognitive Radio Networks", Vehicular Technology Conference, 2009.
VTC Spring 2009. IEEE 69th, April 2009.

[1]

Federal Communications Commission, "Spectrum Policy Task Force,"

Rep. ET Docket no. 02-135, Nov. 2002.

[2]

J. Mitola, "Cognitive Radio: Making Software Defined Radio More

Personal," IEEE Personal Communications, vol. 6, Aug. 1999, pp. 13-18.

[3]

S. Enserink, and D. Cochran, "A Cyclostationary Feature Detector," in

Proc. of IEEE Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers
(ACSSC), vol. 2, Nov. 1994, pp. 806-810.

[4]

JANE Y. YU AND PETER H. 1. CHONG, "A SURVEY OF

CLUSTERING SCHEMES FOR MOBILE AD HOC NETWORKS",
IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, VOLUME 7, NO.1, First
Quarter 2005, pp. 32-48.

[5]

Yang HU, Zhiyong FENG, Zaili WANG, Jingqun SONG, "A Novel
Triggered Asynchronous Spectrum Sensing Scheme in Cognitive Radio
Networks", Vehicular Technology Conference Fall (VTC 201O-Fall),
2010 IEEE 72nd, Sept. 2010.

[19] Chunmei Qi, Jun Wang, Shaoqian Li, "Weighted-clustering Cooperative

Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Context", Communications and
Mobile Computing, 2009. CMC '09. WRI International Conference on,
Jan. 2009, pp.102 - 106.
[20] Luca De Nardis, Daniele Domenicali and Maria-Gabriella Di Benedetto,
"Clustered Hybrid Energy-aware cooperative Spectrum Sensing
(CHESS)", Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and
Communications, 2009. CROWNCOM '09. 4th International Conference
on, June 2009.
[21] R. Baraniuk, "Compressive sensing," IEEE Signal Processing Mag., vol.
24(4), 2007, pp. 118-121.
[22] 1. Ma, Y. Li, "Soft Combination and Detection for Cooperative
Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks," in Proc. IEEE
GLOBECOM '07, Nov. 26-30, 2007 pp.3139 - 3143.

251