Throughput analysis of energy detection based spectrum sensing in cognitive radio

The wide proliferation of wireless digital communication services and spectrum scarcity has led to the development of cognitive radio. They can tackle both scarcity as well as growing demand. For efficient utilization of the spectrum, it permits unlicensed users to exploit licensed bands when they are idle. Since licensees are preferred, so the unlicensed users regularly observe the band of licensed service providers to prevent the occurrence of collisions (interference). This is known as spectrum sensing. It is one of the essential jobs carried out by cognitive radios which assist in their implementation. To conquer the issues of single user sensing, cooperative detection algorithm is used. We present basics of cognitive radios, various spectrum sensing challenges and techniques like energy detection and analysis of throughput to find its optimum value by optimizing number of working sensors in this paper.