Recent paradigms for efficient spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks: Issues and challenges

Abstract

Rapidly advancing technological advancements in the recent past has made the life of consumers at ease through innovation of sophisticated and state of the art gadgets. The consumers are able to access data at high speeds at their own free will irrespective of time and location. With increasing benefits of these wireless gadgets and technologies working on wellknown and efficient radio frequency spectrum, an increasing scarcity in availability of radio frequency spectrum is found to be a rising consequence in recent times. With ever increasing number of wireless gadgets, increasing burden on spectrum allocation is emerging to be a prevalent research topic in recent times. Cognitive radio networks (CRNs) have been found to be effective and intelligent solutions, which by a sequence of intelligent sensing, aggregation of sensed information and decision making, provide an optimal method of allocation of spectrum to demanding users. This paper provides a detailed insight into various methods used in cognitive spectrum sensing, their classifications and methodologies. A vast survey of literature has been systematically provided in this paper with the issues and challenges forming the concluding parts of this survey. Knowledge of existing methods described in the literature with their merits and limitation help in developing and improving the performance of existing spectrum sensing methods to a great extent.