Interference-aware spectrum sensing mechanisms in cognitive radio networks

This paper focuses on the spectrum sensing mechanisms, which could improve network throughput through the sensing strategy optimization and cooperative spectrum sensing methods. In order to guarantee an integrated and effective research, we take the whole channel scenarios into consideration, i.e., Single Secondary user with Single and Multiple Channels (SSSC and SSMC), Multiple Secondary users with Single and Multiple Channels (MSSC and MSMC). Moreover, according to the specific feature of each scenario, different sensing methods are adopted, i.e., optimal sensing period to maximize network throughput for SSSC, a novel sensing method to minimize searching time for SSMC, partial cooperative spectrum sensing mechanism for MSMC, and setting a spectrum pool in the fusion center to record the channel states for MSMC. Simulaticin results demonstrate that our methods can improve spectrum efficiency, network throughput and channel utilization, especially when the spectrum is utilized inadequately. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.