Performance analysis of cognitive radio: Netsim viewpoint

Electromagnetic spectrum is very precious as it is limited and performance of a communication system degrades if it is used inefficiently. Cognitive Radio (CR) ensures proper utilization of the available licensed spectrum of Primary User (PU) by allocating the temporary unused portion of it to a Secondary User (SU). In this paper, we have analyzed the impact of PU activities on the SU throughput and assessed the spectral efficiency. Moreover, the performance of CR has been evaluated for different cooperative approaches and compared considering the corresponding fading effects. Furthermore, security threat in Cognitive Radio Network (CRN) due to PU emulation attack from malicious users has been addressed as well as the corrective measure has been proposed to mitigate the risk.