Cooperative spectrum sensing has been shown to yield a significant
performance improvement in cognitive radio networks. In this paper, we consider
distributed cooperative sensing (DCS) in which secondary users (SUs) exchange
data with one another instead of reporting to a common fusion center. In most
existing DCS algorithms, the SUs are grouped into disjoint cooperative groups
or coalitions, and within each coalition the local sensing data is exchanged.
However, these schemes do not account for the possibility that an SU can be
involved in multiple cooperative coalitions thus forming overlapping
coalitions. Here, we address this problem using novel techniques from a class
of cooperative games, known as overlapping coalition formation games, and based
on the game model, we propose a distributed DCS algorithm in which the SUs
self-organize into a desirable network structure with overlapping coalitions.
Simulation results show that the proposed overlapping algorithm yields
significant performance improvements, decreasing the total error probability up
to 25% in the Q_m+Q_f criterion, the missed detection probability up to 20% in
the Q_m/Q_f criterion, the overhead up to 80%, and the total report number up
to 10%, compared with the state-of-the-art non-overlapping algorithm
