2016 World Symposium on Computer Applications & Research

Comparative Study of Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive Radio System Using Energy
Detection over Different Channels

Roshdy Abdelrassoul, SM IEEE Eman Fathy Mohamed Saad Zghloul

Electronics and Communications Eng. Electronics and Communications Eng. Electronics and Communications Eng.
Arab Academy for Science and Arab Academy for Science and Arab Academy for Science and
Technology, Alexandria, Egypt Technology, Alexandria, Egypt Technology, Alexandria, Egypt
Roshdy@ieee.org Eman.fathy.ahmed@gmail.com Dr_mszaghloul@yahoo.com

Abstract— the radio spectrum is the most source that needs to
be utilized using cognitive radio (CR) system Detecting
primary users (PU) over the spectrum is one of the problems
that face cognitive radio system. To overcome this problem, we
use sensing techniques like energy detection, matched filter
detection and Cyclostationary feature detection. This paper
focuses on spectrum sensing using energy detection technique
for both cases over additive white Gaussian noise(AWGN)
channel and Rayleigh fading channel. Also plots of the
probability of missed detection (Pm) vs. probability of false
alarm (Pf) for both channels were obtained using MATLAB
software.
Keywords- Radio spectrum, Energy detection, Matched filter
detection, Cyclostationary Feature detection, probability of missed
detection, probability of false alarm.
detection takes decision if the spectrum is occupied or
empty depending on two hypothesis (H0 and H1) [2]. The
main metrics are probability of miss detection (Pm) and
probability of false alarm (Pf) over different channels
(AWGN and Rayleigh fading).
The main object of energy detection is to detect PU
presence accurately. The obstacle which faces energy
detection is to determine which hypothesis is true. If
channel is empty and sensor decides it is occupied .that's
called probability of false alarm. If the channel is occupied
and sensor decides it is empty that’s called probability of
miss detection [3].
CLASIFICATION OF SPECTRUM SENSING TECHNIQUES

INTRODUCTION
Radio spectrum is a limited resource and it has to be used
efficiently. Spectrum sensing is the key component of
cognitive radio technology.

Figure 2. Classification of spectrum sensing techniques [4]

As shown in Fig. 2, the techniques are non-cooperative

Figure 1. Illustration of spectrum hole [1]
As shown in Fig. 1, sensing technique is to find unused
spectrum holes at certain time in specific region to reuse it
[1].
The aim of cognitive radio is to detect holes and allocate
secondary users (SU) into the detected holes without any
interference to the primary users (PU). Energy detector is
one of the best and easy methods to sense the presence or
absence of PU. Energy detection depends on a threshold that
we compare it to the incoming signal energy then energy
system, cooperative system and interference based sensing.
The non-cooperative system is classified into energy
detection, matched filter detection and Cyclostationary
feature detection.
Cooperative System
It allows different users to share resources.it increases the
capacity and gain also enhances the reliability, decrease the
probability of miss detection and probability of false alarm,
multipath fading and shadowing.
It depends on every cognitive radio to take the decision and
decide the PU present or not then CRs forward their
decisions to common receiver which takes the final decision

978-1-5090-4114-5/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE

978-0-7695-5832-5/16 58
32
DOI 10.1109/WSCAR.2016.13
 depending on this information deciding the absence or MODEL OF ENERGY DETECTOR OVER AWGN CHANNEL.
presence of PU [5]. In energy detector, the license user signal is first received
Interference Based Sensing and sampled based on the two hypotheses (H0: PU does not
This method depends on noise level of licensed user (PU). exist, H1: PU does exist).
This information is used to detect the presence of PU by According to [12], the decision statistic Z obtained from
unlicensed user (SU) to decrease the interference as possible energy detector is given as
[6].
Non-CooperativeSystem (2)
This system depends on two hypotheses (H0 and H1) to
make decision based on the received signal Where, and is one sided power spectral
H0: X (N) = W (N) density obtained from energy detector is found to have chi-
H1: X (N) = S (N) + W (N) (1) square distribution [13] as given

Where N is number of samples, X (N) is the received

signal, S(N) is the primary users signal, W(N) is the noise, (3)
H0 Gaussian noise (AWGN) with zero mean. In non-
cooperative sensing generally three methods are used for
sensing. Where, m = TW, T is time and W is bandwidth, is the
instantaneous signal to noise ratio (SNR). So the
A. Energy Detection Technique probabilities are
If the signal is a not deterministic one and if only
the average power is known, the energy detector is the most (4)
optimal choice. It calculates the energy of the received signal (5)
and comparison with a set threshold to indicate if primary
user is present or not. The energy detector scheme incurs a
Where, is the threshold value.
very low Computational and implementation cost and
Hence, the form expression for probabilities over
Complexities. Therefore it is widely used [7].
AWGN channel can be obtained from [14], [15].

B. Matched Filter Detection Technique ) (6)

If the transmitted signal is known, matched filter is the
(7)
optimal choice [8]. The main advantage of matched filter is
the small time taken to achieve a certain probability of false
alarm or probability of miss detection [9], [10]. Fig. 3 shows Where, refers to Marcum Q-function
a block diagram of matched filter [11].
(8)

Where, are complete gamma function and

upper incomplete gamma function [15].
Figure 3.Block diagram of matched filter [11] (9)

C. Cyclostationary Feature Detection The probability of false alarm and probability of detection
can be computed if TW>100 [16].
This method depends on Cyclostationary process. When the
statistical properties increase with time, the auto correlation
function is the cyclic process with time [12]. (10)
In this paper our contribution is to find the probability of
miss detection and probability of false alarm over AWGN
(11)
channels and Rayleigh fading channels. Further the system
model of an energy detector is described in the next section
and evaluation of conditional probability of detection and
probability of false alarm is also explained.

33
59
 MODEL OF ENERGY DETECTOR OVER RAYLEIGH FADING
CHANNEL.
When the signal of PU scatter by the effect of environment
the signal undergoes multipath fading. This fading is
described by Rayleigh distribution. So the probability of
detection over Rayleigh fading can be [14].
(ii) At SNR = 4 dB: The probability of missed detection vs.
probability of false alarm is plotted in Fig.5. The three
curves are compared. .We found that the obtained results
matched with what was obtained in reference [6] such that
in both of them the deviation of the simulated curve with the
theoretical and approximated curve is increase.

(12)

Where, is PDF of and probability of false alarm

will remain the same because it is independent of .
So the final expression for probability of detection will be

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

The analysis of energy detection over AWGN channel and Figure 5. The probability of missed detection vs. probability
Rayleigh fading channel is done. The study shows the of false alarm for SNR = 4 dB
following finding. Comparing the work done in [6] and
Here three curves are comparing on the basis of different (iii) At SNR= 7 dB: The probability of missed detection vs.
SNR's for -1, 4 and 9 dB, respectively. probability of false alarm is plotted in Fig.6. The three
(i) At SNR = -1 dB: The probability of missed detection vs. curves are compared. We find that the obtained results
probability of false alarm is plotted in Fig.3. The three matched the results obtained in reference [6], such that in
curves are compared. We found that the obtained results both of them, the Receiver fails to get satisfactory results.
matched with what was obtained in reference [6] such that So the values of the SNRs are depending on other factors.
in both of them the deviation of simulated result values from
the approximated and theoretical values are very less. The
results show that as the probability of false alarm increases,
the probability of miss detection decreases. The theoretical
and the simulated results are nearly same for Probability of
false alarm between 0.1 to 1.
.

Figure 6. The probability of missed detection vs. probability

of false alarm for SNR = 7 dB

(IV) At SNR = -1 dB: The probability of missed detection vs.

probability of false alarm is plotted in Fig.7. showing
comparison between the simulated curves and theoretical
curves over AWGN channel and Rayleigh fading channel.
Figure 4. The probability of missed detection vs. probability
of false alarm for SNR = -1dB

34
60

Figure 7. The probability of missed detection vs.
probability of false alarm for SNR= -1 dB
(V) At SNR = 4 dB: The probability of missed detection vs.
probability of false alarm is plotted in Fig.8.showing comparison
between the simulated curves and theoretical curves over AWGN
channel and Rayleigh fading channel.
Figure 8. The probability of missed detection vs.
probability of false alarm for SNR= 4 dB
CONCLUSION
The performance of an energy detector under AWGN
channel and Rayleigh fading channel is studied using
MATLAB software. The results show that the performance
of energy detector changes under different types of channel
depending on some parameters as SNR. The energy detector
can also be implemented with other channels like Rician
fading with Selection Combining (SC), Maximal Ratio
35
61
Combining (MRC) and Equal Gain Combing (EGC) receive
diversity schemes.
REFERENCES
[1] Haykin S., Thomson DJ., Reed J.H.,"Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive
Radio", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 97, pp.849-877, 12 May 2009.
[2] Herath S.P., Rajatheva N., Tellambura C., "Energy Detection of
Unknown Signals in Fading and Diversity Reception", IEEE
Transaction on Communication Vol. 59, No. 9, September 2011, pp.
2443 – 2453.
[3] Rahul Tandra, Anant Sahai,“SNR walls for signal detection”, IEEE
Journal of selected topics in Signal Processing, 2:1(2008), 4-17.
[4] Ekram Hossain, Dusit Niyato, Zhu Han, “Dynamic Spectrum Access
and Management in Cognitive Radio Networks”, Cambridge
University Press.
[5] Paria Rezaeinia ,Zahra Ashour," Software Defined Radio", Isfahan
University of Technology.
[6] Shivaji Sinhal, Shabana Mehfiiz, Shabana Urooj, " Energy Detection
of Unknown Signals over Rayleigh Fading Channel", International
Conference on Issues and Challenges in Intelligent Computing
Techniques (ICICT),2014., Pages: 303 – 307.
[7] Mohamed Saad Zghloul, Eman Fathy," Comparative Study of
spectrum sensing for Cognitive Radio System Using Energy
Detection and Matched Filter Detection Techniques", CiiT
International Journal of Wireless Communication, Vol 7, No 09,
October - November 2015.
[8] J.G Proakis,Digital Communications, 2001, 4th ed. McGraw-Hill.
[9] R.Tandra and A. Sahais, “Fundamental Limits on Detection in Low
SNR under Noise Uncertainty,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Wireless
Networks, Communication and Mobile Computing, 2005, vol. 1,
Maui, HI, pp. 464–469.
[10] Cognitive Radio Networks available online
on[http://www.supelec.fr/d2ri/flexibleradio/pub/leonardo09.pdf].
[11] Shahzad A. Malik, Madad Ali Shah, Amir H. Dar, Anam Haq, Asad
Ullah Khan, Tahir Javed, Shahid A. Khan, ‘‘comparative Analysis of
Primary Transmitter Detection Based Spectrum Sensing Techniques
in Cognitive Radio Systems”, Australian Journal of Basic and
Applied Sciences, 4(9): 4522-4531, 2010.
[12] Kyouwoong Kim; Akbar, I.A.; Bae, K.K.; Jung-Sun Um; Spooner,
C.M.; Reed, J.H. "Cyclostationary Approaches to Signal Detection
and Classification in Cognitive Radio", New Frontiers in Dynamic
Spectrum Access Networks, 2007. DySPAN, 2nd IEEE International
Symposium, pp. 212- 215, 17-2- April 2007.
[13] H.Urkowitz, “Energy detection of unknown deterministic signals,”,
Proceedings of the IEEE, vol.55 no. 4, pp. 523-531, 1967.
[14] F. F. Digham et al., “On the Energy Detection of Unknown Signals
over Fading Channels,” in Proceedings of the IEEE International
Conference on Communication, Seattle, Washington, USA, 2003, pp.
3575-3579.
[15] Ying Loong Lee ,Wasan Kadhim Saad, Ayman Abd El-
Saleh,Mahamod Ismail," Improved Detection Performance of
Cognitive Radio Networks in AWGN and Rayleigh Fading
Environments", Journal of Applied Research and Technology, Vol.
11, June 2013,pp.437-446.
[16] Mahmood A. K. Abdulsattar, Zahir A. Hussein," Energy Detector
with Baseband Sampling for cognitive Radio: Real-Time
Implementation", Wireless Engineering and Technology, 2012, vol. 3,
pp. 229-239.