An improved energy detection scheme based on channel estimation

Abstract

Energy detection is most commonly employed technique for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks due to its low computational and implementation complexities. However, the performance of energy detector deteriorate considerably under severe fading environment especially in low SNR region. The performance metrics used for energy detector are probability of detection, probability of false alarm and number of samples requirements. The detection threshold plays a significant role in PU signal detection and thus must be chosen appropriately to meet tradeoffbetween probability of detection and probability of false alarm under severe fading. In this paper, we have proposed adaptive threshold detection scheme for severe fading environment to work under low SNR. The simulated results are presented to validate the proposed scheme and it has been shown that proposed scheme is more robust against noise uncertainty under severe fading environment and performs better than conventional energy detection scheme to yield same detection performance.