FPGA implementation of autocorrelation-based feature detector for cognitive radio

Cognitive radio is an emerging technology in communication systems. Cognitive radios aim to relief the shortage of spectral resources by identifying and exploiting underutilized radio spectrum. A key task of the cognitive radio is spectrum sensing in order to find free spectrum and detect licensed spectrum user transmissions. In this paper, an FPGA implementation of a feature detector for OFDM-based primary user signals is presented. The detection algorithm, that was originally presented in , is modified in order to achieve power and area efficient hardware realization. The algorithm is implemented in an FPGA evaluation environment, and the performance is verified in simulation.