Analysis and Optimization of Cooperative Spectrum Sensing with Noisy Decision Transmission

Cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) with decision fusion is considered as a key technology for tackling the challenges caused by fading/shadowing effects and noise uncertainty in spectrum sensing in cognitive radio. However, most existing solutions assume an error-free decision transmission, which is obviously not the case in realistic scenarios. This paper extends the general decision-fusion-based CSS scheme by considering the fading/shadowing effects and noise corruption in the common control channels. With this more practical model, the fusion centre first estimates the local decisions using a binary minimum error probability detector, and then combines them to get the final result. Theoretical analysis and simulation of this CSS scheme are performed over typical channels, which suggest some performance deterioration compared with the pure case that assumes an error-free decision transmission. Furthermore, the fusion strategy optimization in the proposed cooperation model is also investigated using the Bayesian criteria. The numerical results show that the total error rate of noisy CSS is higher than that of the pure case, and the optimal values of fusion parameter in the counting rule under both cases decrease as the local detection threshold increases.