2013 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Trends in Computing, Communication and Nanotechnology (ICECCN 2013)

476

A Novel Selection Based Hybrid Spectrum Sensing

Technique for Cognitive Radios
Geethu S

G Lakshminarayanan

Dept. of Electronics and Communication

NIT Tiruchirappalli
Tiruchirappalli, India
geethu.s.nitt@gmail.com

Dept. of Electronics and Communication

NIT Tiruchirappalli
Tiruchirappalli, India
laksh@nitt.edu

Abstract Cognitive radio is a solution for the spectral

crowding problem by introducing opportunistic usage of
frequency bands that are not occupied by licensed primary users.
Spectrum sensing is the most important task of cognitive radio
which identifies the existence of the primary users in the
frequency band under consideration. Energy detector (ED) is one
of the simplest and basic methods for spectrum sensing but it
suffers from noise uncertainty problem. Covariance Absolute
Value (CAV) is another spectrum sensing method which is based
on the statistical covariance of the received signal but it works
well only if the signal samples are highly correlated. Hence
another novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing method is
proposed which combines the advantages of both the methods.
Simulation results prove that the novel selection based spectrum
sensing method outperforms both the energy detection as well as
CAV method and identifies the spectrum hole irrespective of the
nature of the signal under consideration.
Keywords correlation; covariance absolute value method;
energy detector; spectrum sensing.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Cognitive radio (CR) is a paradigm of wireless

communications systems which aims to increase the efficient
utilization of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum. Cognitive
radio can be defined as an intelligent wireless communication
system that is aware of its ambient environment [1]. It will
learn from the environment and adapt its internal states to
statistical variations in the existing RF stimuli by adjusting the
transmission parameters. The two major objectives of CR are
to improve the effective utilization of the underutilized
frequency spectrum and to achieve highly efficient and reliable
wireless communications. Spectrum sensing is a fundamental
task for cognitive radio [2]. The goal of spectrum sensing is to
identify the activity of the licensed primary users and detect
unused spectrum or spectrum hole by periodically sensing the
required frequency band.
Energy detection (ED) [3] is the optimal and the simplest
method for spectrum sensing when the information from the
licensed user is unavailable. However the energy detection
performance deteriorates when the Signal to Noise (SNR) [4]
decreases as the threshold in this technique depends very much
on the environmental noise. The major shortcomings of energy
detection are it is highly susceptible to the uncertainty of noise

power and it cannot differentiate the type of signal even though

it can detect the presence of signal and the spectrum sensing
speed is relatively slow.
Covariance Absolute Value (CAV) [5] algorithm is found
to be robust in high noise environment. CAV method is based
on the difference in correlation of the received signal and noise.
The autocorrelations of the received signal and noise are
different. This difference is used in the CAV method to
differentiate the signal component from the environment noise.
This method also does not require any knowledge about the
primary user (PU) signal. However the complexity of CAV is
much greater than ED but the accuracy is very high. One of the
main disadvantage of CAV method is its sensitivity to signal
correlation. There are other techniques for spectrum sensing
like matched filtering (MF) method [9], [10], cyclostationary
feature detection [11],[12], radio identification method,
waveform based sensing, likelihood ratio test (LRT) [13] etc.,
which has its own advantages and disadvantages [6], [7].
Spectrum sensing can be also done by defining leading
eigenvector as a feature [8].
Thus it can be clearly stated that no single technique for
spectrum sensing is perfectly suitable for cognitive radio and
hence it would be always better to combine the advantages
associated with two techniques. Here a selection based hybrid
spectrum sensing method is proposed which combines the
advantages associated with ED and CAV method for spectrum
sensing. In this novel selection based method for spectrum
sensing either ED or CAV is activated at a particular time
based on a threshold value.
In this paper, the performance characteristic of the
proposed selection based method is studied. The proposed
method utilizes the advantages of both the methods and
maintains the required probability of detection (Pd) and
probability of false alarm (Pfa) of CR devices.
The paper is organized as follows. The second section
describes analysis of ED and CAV methods. The third section
describes the novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing
technique. The fourth section presents the simulation results.
Conclusions are drawn in the fifth section.

978-1-4673-5036-5/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

477
II.

ANALYSIS OF ED AND CAV METHODS

Let x(t ) = s (t ) + (t ) be the continuous time received

signal, where s(t) is the primary users signal and (t ) is the
noise. Let fc be the central frequency and W be the bandwidth.
The received signal is sampled at a sampling rate fs, where
f s W . Let Ts = 1/fs be the sampling period. We define

x(n)  x(nTs ) , s (n)  s (nTs ) and (n)  (nTs ) .

Basically the purpose of spectrum sensing is to distinguish
between two states: signals presence and absence. Two
hypothesis of the received signal are then posed:
H 0 : x ( n) = (n)

i.e., signal does not exist

H1 : x(n) = s (n) + (n)

i.e., signal exists

where s(n) is the transmitted signal samples that passed

through a wireless channel consisting of fading , losses etc.;
and (n) is the white noise which is i.i.d., having zero mean
2

and variance .
A. Energy Detection Method
The energy detector calculates the energy of all Ns samples
of the received signal and compares it with the threshold ED to
decide whether the primary user is present or not.
The signal to noise ratio can be given as
2

= s 2

(1)

The test static of the ED is given by

1 Ns
2
TED =
| x[n] |
Ns 1

(2)

The mean and variance of the test static of ED is given by

2
0 =
(3)
2

0 =
(4)
Ns

1 = 0 (1+ )

(5)

1 = 0 ( 2 + 1 )

(6)

The threshold of energy detector can be given by

The PfaED and PdED of ED is given by

(8)

-
PdED = Q( ED 1 )
1

(9)

where Q(x) is the complementary distribution function and is

u2
1 -2
du .
given by Q(x) =
e
2 x
B. Covariance Absolute Value Method
In the CAV detector, consecutive L (smoothening factor)
samples are considered and the statistical covariance matrices
of the received signal and noise are calculated as

(7)

(10)

(11)

R x = E[x(n)x (n)]
Rs = E[s(n)s (n)]

and it can be verified that

2
R x = Rs + I L

(12)

If signal is absent, Rs = 0 and only diagonal elements are

non zero and if signal is present, Rs 0 and some of the offdiagonal elements are non zero. Each element of the matrix Rx
can be obtained by taking the autocorrelation of the received
samples and it can be defined as
(l) =

This test static is compared with the threshold ED. If TED >
ED, the signal is considered to be present otherwise it is
considered to be absent.

-1
ED = Q (PfaED )0 + 0

-
PfaED = Q( ED 0 )
0

1 Ns-1
x(m)x(m - l)
Ns m=0

,l = 0,1,...,L-1

(13)

In the matrix form the auto-correlations of the received

signal can be given as
(1)
(0)
(1)
(0)
Rx =
#
#
(L
1)
(L
- 2)

" (L - 1)
" (L - 2)

%
#

" (0)

(14)

The threshold for CAV algorithm is

1+ (L - 1)

CAV =

Ns
2
-1
1 - Q (Pfa )
Ns

(15)

The test static for CAV, TCAV can be obtained by taking

the ratio of K1(Ns) and K2(Ns) where
K1(Ns) = (0)+

2 L-1
(L - l) | (l) |
L l=1

(16)

K 2 (Ns) = (0)

(17)

If TCAV is greater than CAV, then the existence of primary

user is confirmed, otherwise the channel is assumed to be
empty.
The PfaCAV and PdCAV of CAV is given by

1
2

1+ (L - 1)
-1

Ns

PfaCAV = 1 - Q CAV

Ns

SNR
1

L
+
-1

CAV (SNR + 1)

PdCAV = 1 - Q CAV

Ns

(18)

(19)

where L is the overall correlation strength among the

consecutive L samples and is given by
L 

2 L-1
(L - 1) | l |
L l=1

(20)

where l is the normalized correlation among the signal

samples (0 |l| 1) and is given by

= E[s(n)s(n-l)] s2

479
III.

NOVEL SELECTION BASED HYBRID SPECTRUM SENSING

METHOD
This novel selection based hybrid detection method for
spectrum sensing is proposed to combine the advantages
offered by both the CAV and ED detection methods and to
overcome the limitations offered by each. Energy detection [3]
is the optimal and simplest detection technique but its threshold
depends very much on the environmental noise. In case of
noise uncertainty, the ED tends to reach a SNR wall [4] which
restricts the detection capabilities. The performance of ED in
low SNR is highly unreliable.
The CAV method [5] works accurately in noise uncertainty
conditions but it has got its own limitations. It is highly
sensitive to received input signal correlation. CAV does not
perform well under low correlation. So the new method is
proposed to take the advantages of both the methods based on
signal correlation strength. In this method, ED is used in low
correlation and CAV is used in case of high correlation.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

The test signal is QPSK. The probability of false alarm is
set to 0.1. Fig. 5 shows the plot for probability of detection
versus number of samples for the selection based hybrid
detection method for spectrum sensing. It is clear from the plot
that as the number of samples increases, Pd also increases.
Fig. 6 shows the plot of smoothing factor versus probability
of detection for the selection based hybrid detection method for
spectrum sensing. This plot clearly shows that as the value of L
increases Pd also increases.
In Fig. 7 Pd versus L is plotted for the novel selection based
hybrid spectrum sensing method for different values of SNR.
In Fig. 8 Pd versus L is plotted for the selection based sensing
method for different values of Pfa. In Fig. 9 Pd versus L is
plotted for different values of number of samples, Ns.
Ns versus probability of detection (pfa = 0.1 & SNR = -20dB)
1

0.9

probability of detection

The novel selection based hybrid detection method is

explained below

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

3.5

4.5
Ns

5.5

6
x 10

Fig.5 Pd versus Ns for novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing method
at SNR = -20dB, Pfa = 0.1 and L =10.
L versus probability of detection (pfa = 0.1 & SNR = -20dB)
1
0.9
0.8

In this method, the incoming received signal is sampled and

the overall correlation strength among the consecutive L
samples, L is compared with the threshold or decision static of
the selection based hybrid detection method, SEL. If L is
greater than SEL , the CAV detection stage is activated and the
computational complexity will be L times Ns multiplications
and additions. If L is found to be less than SEL , the ED
detection stage is activated and the computational complexity
will be Ns multiplications and additions.

0.7

probability of detection

Fig. 4 Model for novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing method for
cognitive radio

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

6.5

7.5
8
8.5
smoothing factor,L

9.5

10

Fig. 6 Pd versus L for novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing method
at SNR = -20dB, Pfa = 0.1 and Ns = 50000.
correlation coefficient versus Pd for novel selection based hybrid technique
1
0.9

SEL 

2 L-1
(L - 1) | l |
L l=1

(25)

where l is the sample autocorrelation coefficient and it is

given by
l = (x(0)T * x(l)) x2
2
2
2
where x is the signal power, i.e., x = E(x (n)) .

(26)

0.8
probability of detection, Pd

The threshold or decision static of the selection based

hybrid detection method is

SNR = -18
SNR = -20
SNR = -22

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

3
4
5
6
correlation coefficient, gammaL

Fig.7 Pd versus L for novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing method
at Pfa = 0.1, Ns = 50000 and L =10 for different values of SNR.

480
efficiently at high SNR values but still it is highly susceptible
to noise uncertainty. Energy detector performance does not
depend on the signal correlation. Covariance absolute value
detector works efficiently even in high noise environment and
low SNR values. CAV detector fails to perform well if input
received signal is uncorrelated. The novel spectrum sensing
technique takes the advantage of both the methods. The
proposed technique is insensitive to the type of input data and it
meets the required target probability of detection for the
cognitive radio devices.

correlation coefficient versus Pd for novel selection based hybrid technique

1
0.9

Pfa = 0.01
Pfa = 0.05
Pfa = 0.1

probability of detection, Pd

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1

REFERENCES
1

3
4
5
6
correlation coefficient, gammaL

Fig.8 Pd versus L for novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing method
at Ns = 50000, SNR = -18dB and L =10 for different values of Pfa.

[1]

[2]

correlation coefficient versus Pd for novel selection based hybrid technique

1

[3]

probability of detection, Pd

0.9

Ns = 30000
Ns = 50000
Ns = 70000

[4]

0.8

0.7

[5]

0.6

[6]

0.5

0.4

3
4
5
6
correlation coefficient, gammaL

Fig.9 Pd versus L for novel selection based hybrid spectrum sensing

method at Pfa = 0.1, SNR = -18dB and L =10 for different values of Ns.

It is clear from all the plots that, the novel selection based
hybrid spectrum sensing method for spectrum sensing works
efficiently for all type of input data i.e., it is insensitive to the
type of input. In this method if the data is uncorrelated the ED
stage is activated i.e., that if the correlation strength of data is
low, spectrum is sensed by energy detector. If the input data is
highly correlated i.e., if the correlation strength is high the
spectrum is sensed efficiently by the covariance absolute value
detector. Thus it can be clearly stated that the novel algorithm
proposed outperforms both the energy detector and the CAV
detector.
V.

CONCLUSION

In this paper a novel selection based hybrid spectrum

sensing method is proposed. The energy detector works

[7]

[8]
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[10]
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[12]

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