A Performance Study of Energy Detection Based Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive Radio Networks

This study evaluates the performance of the energy detection based spectrum sensing technique in noisy and fading environments. Both single user detection and cooperative detection situations were investigated. Closed form solutions for the probabilities of detection and false alarm were derived. Analytical results were verified by numerical computations using Monte Carlo method in MATLAB. The performance of the energy detection technique was evaluated by use of Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves over AWGN and fading (Rayleigh & Nakagami-m) channels. Results show that for both single user detection and cooperative detection, the energy detection technique performs better in AWGN than in fading environment. The performance of cooperative detection in fading environment on the other hand, outperforms that of the single user detector. Keywords— Cognitive Radio, Energy Detection, Spectrum Sensing, Telecommunications, Wireless Communication.