Performance analysis and optimization schemes for cooperative spectrum sensing and information fusion for cognitive radio : A survey

Accurate spectrum sensing plays a decisive role in determining the performance of any cognitive radio network (CRN). Spectrum sensing enables the unlicensed secondary users (SUs) to operate in the licensed band until the primary user (PU) is detected. By allowing SUs in the same band to cooperate, we can reduce the detection time and increase overall agility and this forms the basis of cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) wherein a collaborative decision on the state of PU is made by combining the local sensing information gathered by the individual SU nodes. The unification of individual sensing results to form a global decision is done through information fusion techniques. This work aims at presenting state-of-the-art proposals and optimization approaches for cooperative spectrum sensing and information fusion in cognitive radio environment.