Detect and Avoid for UWB-WiMedia: Performance bounds of signal sensing

Detect and avoid (DAA) is a simple cognitive radio technique for the coexistence of a primary user and secondary users sharing the same spectrum. Critical to DAA implementation is a detection system which must provide both rapid and accurate decisions on the presence/absence of primary user transmission. In this work, performance results for both energy sensing and waveform sensing are presented in the context of UWB (ultra-wideband) WiMedia and WiMAX coexistence. These results provide upper and lower bounds on the decision error rate performance of sensing systems as a function of SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) and the number of samples used in the sensing decision. The bounds represent benchmarks on the performances of practical detection systems and give insight into the trade-off between sensing performance and processing time.