Demonstration of energy detector performance and spectrum sensing in Cognitive Radio using AWGN, Rayleigh and Nakagami channels

Cognitive Radio (CR) is an innovative approach based on Software Defined Radio (SDR) that utilizes frequency spectrum efficiently to accommodate large number of users. Fast & fine spectrum sensing (to determine available free spectrum) is the primary objective in CR systems. Spectrum sensing is effected by multipath and shadowing which are the major hindrances in wireless communication; there are different methods to perform spectrum sensing. This paper aims to investigate the spectrum sensing through energy detection method over different fading channels (AWGN, Rayleigh, Nakagami) and shows a detailed comparison of these channels parameters based on simulation results. Degradation of performance as a result of multipath & shadowing is improved by collaborative spectrum sensing. Initially, spectrum sensing is compared using different channels and then improvement in results is shown using collaborative spectrum sensing.