Biologically Inspired Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme for Maritime Cognitive Radio Networks

Spectrum sensing is imperative to the success of maritime cognitive radio networks (MCRNs). Spectrum sensing in MCRNs is challenging because of the sea surface movement, the channel interference, and the unstable link quality. Recent research reveals that existing spectrum sensing schemes work well for lower sea states; however, they have failed to perform effectively at higher sea states. There are two disadvantages of performing spectrum sensing at higher sea states: 1) low probability of detection may also cause interference with primary system and 2) energy wastage. In this paper, a biologically inspired cooperative spectrum sensing scheme (BIC3S) is proposed to deal with the reliability and energy consumption challenges associated with the sea environment. It is based on the task allocation model of an insect colony. The proposed BIC3S chooses participating secondary users for cooperative spectrum sensing according to their given sea state. Further, it enables the secondary users to decide whether or not to perform spectrum sensing based on their sea state. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme in terms of energy consumption, detection performance, and throughput. It is shown that the proposed BIC3S consumes less energy and, at the same time, achieves higher detection probability and fewer probability of false alarms compared to the existing schemes. Moreover, BIC3S provides better adaptation capabilities for the sea environment.