Performance analysis of hybrid cognitive radio systems with imperfect channel knowledge

In this paper, we study the performance of hybrid cognitive radio systems that combine the benefits of interweave and underlay systems by employing a spectrum sensing and a power control mechanism at the Secondary Transmitter (ST). Existing baseline models considered for performance analysis assume perfect knowledge of the involved channels at the ST, however, such situations hardly exist in practical deployments. Motivated by this fact, we propose a novel approach that incorporates channel estimation at the ST, and consequently characterizes the performance of Hybrid Systems (HSs) under realistic scenarios. To capture the impact of imperfect channel knowledge, we propose outage constraints on the detection probability at the ST and on the interference power received at the primary receiver. Our analysis reveals that the baseline model overestimates the performance of the HS in terms of achievable secondary user throughput. Finally, based on the proposed estimation-sensing-throughput tradeoff, we determine suitable estimation and sensing durations that effectively capture the effect of imperfect channel knowledge and subsequently enhance the achievable secondary user throughput.