Many cognitive radio (CR) systems rely upon spectrum sensing techniques to determine whether an allocated spectrum is in use by licensed users. The technology is a method for cooperatively deciding whether a signal of interest is present using information from multiple sensor nodes (such as secondary users of a CR system). Each node employs a class of nonuniform samplers called event-triggered samplers that only need to asynchronously transmit a few bits to the unit that decides whether a signal of interest is present in order to enable it to make a final sensing decision. The low bandwidth requirements and rapid decision computation time of this method may improve resource utilization and power efficiency of CR systems and sensor networks.
Cooperative detection of a signal of interest by a distributed network of sensors is an effective way to perform spectrum sensing in CR systems. Units in such a system typically transmit sensing data synchronously as regularly sampled information to the unit that decides whether a signal of interest is present. By employing event-triggered sampling, the technology significantly reduces the amount of data that must be transmitted to perform cooperative signal detection; the decision unit only performs a full read from the other units when it determines that a signal of interest is present. The efficient transmission of decision data also enables quick computation of a decision with centralized (non-cooperative) sensing methods.
The technology's performance advantage has been confirmed using computer simulations.
Tech Ventures Reference: IR CU12251