Energy efficient scheme based on simultaneous transmission of the local decisions in cooperative spectrum sensing

A common concern regarding cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) schemes is the occupied bandwidth and the energy consumption during the transmissions of sensing information to the fusion center over the reporting control channels. This concern is intensified if the number of cooperating secondary users in the network is large. This article presents a new fusion strategy for a CSS scheme, aiming at increasing the energy efficiency of a recently proposed bandwidth-efficient fusion scheme. Analytical results and computational simulations unveil a high increase in energy efficiency when compared with the original approach, yet achieving better performances in some situations, and lower implementation complexity.