Exploiting polarization for spectrum sensing in cognitive SatComs

Abstract

Exploring new techniques for spectrum sensing (SS), which can detect the weak primary signals instantly, has been an important research challenge. In this paper, the problem of enhancing SS efficiency in cognitive SatComs has been considered. The analysis of different combining techniques has been carried out for SS using dual polarized antenna. Furthermore, polarization states of received signals are exploited and based on obtained polarization states, Optimum Polarization Based Combining (OPBC) technique has been used for carrying out SS in the satellite terminal. The sensing performance of OPBC technique has been compared to selection combining (SC), equal gain combining (EGC) and maximum ratio combining (MRC) techniques. The simulation results show that OPBC technique achieves a great improvement in sensing efficiency over other considered techniques at the expense of complexity in a dual polarized AWGN channel. © 2012 ICST.