Error Rate Analysis of Cognitive Radio Transmissions with Imperfect Channel Sensing

In this paper, error rate performance of cognitive radio transmissions is studied in the presence of imperfect channel sensing decisions. It is assumed that cognitive users first perform channel sensing, albeit with possible errors. Then, depending on the sensing decisions, they select the transmission energy level and employ M
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× M
_Q
rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) for data transmission over a fading channel. In this setting, the optimal decision rule is formulated under the assumptions that the receiver is equipped with the sensing decision and perfect knowledge of the channel fading. It is shown that the thresholds for optimal detection at the receiver are the midpoints between the signals under any sensing decision. Subsequently, minimum average error probability expressions for M-ary pulse amplitude modulation (M-PAM) and M
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× M
_Q
rectangular QAM transmissions attained with the optimal detector are derived. The effects of imperfect channel sensing decisions on the average symbol error probability are analyzed.