Cooperative Spectrum Sensing with Improved Energy Detection over Different Fading Channels: A Performance Analysis

The growing demand for high-bandwidth wireless technologies has led to spectrum scarcity, which limits the available bandwidth for wireless communication. Licensed spectrum, however, has been proven in a number of studies to be underutilized. Cognitive radio technology is being presented as a solution to this problem since it allows unlicensed users to gain opportunistic access to licensed bands of primary users. In wireless communication systems, multipath fading can cause signal attenuation and distortion due to reflection, diffraction, and scattering. Two common models used to describe multipath fading are Nakagami and Rayleigh fading channels. Nakagami fading is a more generalized model that includes Rayleigh fading as a special case. In this work, we use an improved energy detection technique to assess the effectiveness of cooperative spectrum sensing over Nakagami-m and Rayleigh fading channels. Cooperative spectrum sensing performance is assessed using extensive simulation results.