A Blind Likelihood-Based Approach for OFDM Spectrum Sensing in the Presence of I/Q Imbalance

We investigate the spectrum sensing problem in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing-based cognitive radio networks under I/Q imbalance. We start by deriving the likelihood ratio test in the presence of I/Q imbalance at the analog front-ends of both the primary and secondary users. In addition, we derive closed-form expressions for the probabilities of detection and false alarm and the receiver operating characteristics and examine their dependence on both transmit and receive I/Q imbalance levels. Furthermore, we compare the performance of the likelihood ratio test with that of the energy detector and demonstrate the superiority of the former over the latter. Next, we generalize our analysis to the blind case where we derive simple closed-form expressions for the generalized likelihood ratio test and its false alarm probability as a function of the received signal only, i.e. without requiring any knowledge of the primary-to-secondary channel response, noise statistics, or I/Q imbalance parameters. Our results demonstrate that the correlation properties of the primary user's signal induced by transmit I/Q imbalance are signal features that can be exploited in a blind fashion at the secondary user to enhance the detection probability significantly compared to the conventional energy detector.