Collaborative spectrum sensing in the presence of secondary user interferences for lognormal shadowing

The performance of collaborative spectrum sensing is examined for lognormal shadowing channels when secondary user interferences (SUIs) occur. Both soft decision rule and hard decision rule are considered. Computer simulation shows that the SUIs can be ignored in some cases, depending on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the signal-to-interference ratio, the number of secondary users, the sample correlation, and the decision rule. Thus, by choosing appropriate system parameters, one may conduct collaborative spectrum sensing at the same time as secondary data transmission to save overheads. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd