Optimizing spectrum sensing parameters for local and cooperative cognitive radios

In spectrum-sensing cognitive radio, a local radio might fail to reliably and efficiently monitor the available spectrum holes. To combat the channel fading suffered by such a radio, a cognitive network of cooperative spectrum sensing users is employed. The spectrum sensing time duration should be minimized to maximize the capacity of cognitive radio network. In this paper, the twin effects of varying the entire frame duration and sensing time duration is studied. The simulation results show that the cognitive radio network capacity can be maximized by an appropriate selection of total frame duration and an optimized corresponding sensing time.