In cognitive radio (CR) networks, spectrum sensing is an essential task for enabling dynamic spectrum sharing. However, the problem becomes quite challenging in wideband spectrum sensing due to high sampling pressure, limited power and computing resources, and serious channel fading. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a distributed collaborative spectrum sensing scheme based on 1-bit compressive sensing (CS). Each secondary user (SU) performs local 1-bit CS and obtains support estimate information from the signal reconstruction. To utilize joint sparsity and achieve spatial diversity, the support estimate information among the network is fused via the average consensus technique based on distributed computation and one-hop communications. Then the fused result on support estimate is used as priori information to guide the next local signal reconstruction, which is implemented via our proposed weighted binary iterative hard thresholding (BIHT) algorithm. The local signal reconstruction and the distributed fusion of support information are alternately carried out until reliable spectrum detection is achieved. Simulations testify the effectiveness of our proposed scheme in distributed CR networks.

This letter presents a computational complexity reduction technique for space diversity based spectrum sensing when the number of receive antennas is greater than three (NR≥3 where NR is the number of receive antenna). The received signals are combined with phase inversion so as to not attenuate the combined signal, and a statistic for signal detection is computed from the combined signal. Because the computation of only one statistic is required regardless of the number of receive antenna, the complexity can be reduced. Numerical examples and simple analysis verify the effectiveness of the presented technique.

In this work, we investigate a joint transmit beamforming and artificial noise (AN) covariance matrix design in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cognitive radio (CR) downlink network with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), where the malicious energy receivers (ERs) may decode the desired information and hence can be treated as potential eavesdroppers (Eves). In order to improve the secure performance of the transmission, AN is embedded to the information-bearing signal, which acts as interference to the Eves and provides energy to all receivers. Specifically, this joint design is studied under a practical non-linear energy harvesting (EH) model, our aim is to maximize the secrecy rate at the SR subject to the transmit power budget, EH constraints and quality of service (QoS) requirement. The original problem is not convex and challenging to be solved. To circumvent its intractability, an equivalent reformulation of this secrecy rate maximization (SRM) problem is introduced, wherein the resulting problem is primal decomposable and thus can be handled by alternately solving two convex subproblems. Finally, numerical results are presented to verify the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

This paper introduces an energy-efficient transmit design for multiple-input single-output (MISO) energy-harvesting cognitive radio (CR) networks in the presence of external eavesdroppers (Eves). Due to the inherent characteristics of CR network with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), Eves may illegitimately access the primary user (PU) bands, and the confidential message is prone to be intercepted in wireless communications. Assuming the channel state information (CSI) of the Eves is not perfectly known at the transmitter, our approach to guaranteeing secrecy is to maximize the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) by jointly designing the robust beamforming and the power splitting (PS) ratio, under the constraints of total transmit power, harvested energy at secondary receiver (SR) and quality of service (QoS) requirement. Specifically, a non-linear energy harvesting (EH) model is adopted for the SR, which can accurately characterize the property of practical RF-EH circuits. To solve the formulated non-convex problem, we first employ fractional programming theory and penalty function to recast it as an easy-to-handle parametric problem, and then deal with the non-convexity by applying S-Procedure and constrained concave convex procedure (CCCP), which enables us to exploit the difference of concave functions (DC) programming to seek the maximum worst-case SEE. Finally, numerical results are presented to verify the performance of the proposed scheme.

To improve the efficiency of spectrum utilization, cognitive radio systems attempt to use temporarily unoccupied spectrum which is referred to as a spectrum hole. To this end, QoS (Quality of Service) is one of the most important issues in practical cognitive radio systems. In this article, an efficient spectrum management scheme using self-reserving spectrum is proposed to support QoS for cognitive radio users. The self-reservation of a spectrum hole can minimize service dropping probability by using the statistical characteristics of spectrum bands while using optimum amount of resources. In addition, it realizes seamless service for users by eliminating spectrum entry procedure that includes spectrum sensing, spectrum request, and spectrum grant. Performance analysis and intensive system level simulations confirm the efficiency of the proposed algorithms.

Price-based power control problem is investigated in the spectrum sharing cognitive radio networks (CRNs) by Stackelberg game. Using backward induction, the revenue function of the primary user (PU) is expressed as a non-convex function of the transmit power of the secondary users (SUs). To solve the non-convex problem of the PU, a branch and bound based price-based power control algorithm is proposed. The proposed algorithm can be used to provide performance benchmarks for any other low complexity sub-optimal price-based power control algorithms based on Stackelberg game in CRNs.

Spectrum sensing is the first task performed by cognitive radio (CR) networks. In this paper we propose a spectrum sensing algorithm for orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) signal based on deep learning and covariance matrix graph. The advantage of deep learning in image processing is applied to the spectrum sensing of OFDM signals. We start by building the spectrum sensing model of OFDM signal, and then analyze structural characteristics of covariance matrix (CM). Once CM has been normalized and transformed into a gray level representation, the gray scale map of covariance matrix (GSM-CM) is established. Then, the convolutional neural network (CNN) is designed based on the LeNet-5 network, which is used to learn the training data to obtain more abstract features hierarchically. Finally, the test data is input into the trained spectrum sensing network model, based on which spectrum sensing of OFDM signals is completed. Simulation results show that this method can complete the spectrum sensing task by taking advantage of the GSM-CM model, which has better spectrum sensing performance for OFDM signals under low SNR than existing methods.

In this letter, we consider the harvested-energy fairness problem in cognitive multicast systems with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer. In the cognitive multicast system, a cognitive transmitter with multi-antenna sends the same information to cognitive users in the presence of licensed users, and cognitive users can decode information and harvest energy with a power-splitting structure. The harvested-energy fairness problem is formulated and solved by using two proposed algorithms, which are based on semidefinite relaxation with majorization-minimization method, and sequential parametric convex approximation with feasible point pursuit technique, respectively. Finally, the performances of the proposed solutions and baseline schemes are verified by simulation results.

This letter studies physical-layer security in a cognitive radio (CR) network, where a primary user (PU) is eavesdropped by multiple collusive eavesdroppers. Under the PU secrecy outage constraint to protect the PU, the secondary users (SUs) are assumed to be allowed to transmit. The problem of joint SU scheduling and power control to maximize the SU ergodic transmission rate is investigated for both the scenarios of perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI). It is shown that, although collusive eavesdroppers degrade the PU performance compared to non-collusive eavesdroppers, the SU performance is actually improved when the number of eavesdroppers is large. It is also shown that our proposed scheme with imperfect CSI can guarantee that the PU performance is unaffected by imperfect CSI.

Spectrum databases are required to assist the process of radio propagation estimation for spectrum sharing. Especially, a measurement-based spectrum database achieves highly efficient spectrum sharing by storing the observed radio environment information such as the signal power transmitted from a primary user. However, when the average received signal power is calculated in a given square mesh, the bias of the observation locations within the mesh strongly degrades the accuracy of the statistics because of the influence of terrain and buildings. This paper proposes a method for determining the statistics by using mesh clustering. The proposed method clusters the feature vectors of the measured data by using the k-means and Gaussian mixture model methods. Simulation results show that the proposed method can decrease the error between the measured value and the statistically processed value even if only a small amount of data is available in the spectrum database.

We propose a cooperative cognitive radio network (CCRN) with secondary users (SUs) employing two simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) antennas. In the proposed framework of full-duplex (FD) multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) CCRN, the region of achievable rate is expanded via FD communication among SUs enabled by the STAR antennas adopted for the SUs. The link capacity of the proposed framework is analyzed theoretically. It is shown through numerical analysis that the proposed FD MIMO-CCRN framework can provide a considerable performance gain over the conventional frameworks of CCRN and MIMO-CCRN.

A multi-channel cognitive radio is a powerful solution for recovering the exhaustion of frequency spectrum resources. In a cognitive radio, although master and slave terminals (which construct a communication link) have the freedom to access arbitrary channels, access channel mismatch is caused. A rendezvous scheme based on frequency hopping can compensate for this mismatch by exchanging control signals through a selected channel in accordance with a certain rule. However, conventional frequency hopping schemes do not consider an access protocol of both control signals in the rendezvous scheme and the signal caused by channel access from other systems. Further, they do not consider an information sharing method to reach a consensus between the master and slave terminals. This paper proposes a modified rendezvous scheme based on learning-based channel occupancy rate (COR) estimation and describes a specific channel-access rule in the slave terminal. On the basis of this rule, the master estimates a channel selected by the slave by considering the average COR of the other systems. Since the master can narrow down the number of channels, a fast rendezvous scheme with a few control signals is established.

We introduce a Welch FFT segment size selection method for FFT-based wide band spectrum measurement in the context of smart spectrum access (SSA), in which statistical spectrum usage information of primary users (PUs), such as duty cycle (DC), will be exploited by secondary users (SUs). Energy detectors (EDs) based on Welch FFT can detect the presence of PU signals in a broadband environment efficiently, and DC can be estimated properly if a Welch FFT segment size is set suitably. There is a trade-off between detection performance and frequency resolution in terms of the Welch FFT segment size. The optimum segment size depends on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) which makes practical and optimum segment size setting difficult. For this issue, we previously proposed a segment size selection method employing a relationship between noise floor (NF) estimation output and the segment size without SNR information. It can achieve accurate spectrum awareness at the expense of relatively high computational complexity since it employs exhaustive search to select a proper segment size. In this paper, we propose a segment size selection method that offers reasonable spectrum awareness performance with low computational complexity since limited search is used. Numerical evaluations show that the proposed method can match the spectrum awareness performance of the conventional method with 70% lower complexity or less.

Cognitive radio (CR) is considered as the most promising solution to the so-called spectrum scarcity problem, in which channel sensing is an important problem. In this paper, the problem of determining the period of medium access control (MAC)-layer channel sensing in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) is studied. In our study, the channel state is statistically modeled as a continuous-time alternating renewal process (ARP) alternating between the OFF and ON states for the primary user (PU)'s communication activity. Based on the statistical ARP model, we analyze the CRNs with different SU MAC protocols, taking into consideration the effects of practical issues of imperfect channel sensing and non-negligible channel sensing time. Based on the analysis results, a constrained optimization problem to find the optimal sensing period is formulated and the feasibility of this problem is studied for systems with different OFF/ON channel state length distributions. Numerical results are presented to show the performance of the proposed sensing period optimization scheme. The effects of practical system parameters, including channel sensing errors and channel sensing time, on the performance and the computational complexity of the proposed sensing period optimization scheme are also investigated.

This paper presents a computationally efficient cyclostationarity detection based spectrum sensing technique in cognitive radio. Traditionally, several cyclostationarity detection based spectrum sensing techniques with a low computational complexity have been presented, e.g., peak detector (PD), maximum cyclic autocorrelation selection (MCAS), and so on. PD can be affected by noise uncertainty because it requires a noise floor estimation, whereas MCAS does not require the estimation. Furthermore, the computational complexity of MCAS is greater than that of PD because MCAS must compute some statistics for signal detection instead of the estimation unnecessary whereas PD must compute only one statistic. In the presented MCAS based techniques, only one statistic must be computed. The presented technique obtains other necessary statistics from the procedure that computes the statistic. Therefore, the computational complexity of the presented is almost the same as that of PD, and it does not require the noise floor estimation for threshold. Numerical examples are shown to validate the effectiveness of the presented technique.

This letter presents two outage-optimal relaying schemes to improve the performance of a wireless energy harvesting system in cognitive radio networks. The performance of both schemes is then evaluated and compared by carrying out numerical simulations, and we also derive the analytic expression for the outage probability of the secondary system.

This research addresses improvements in the efficiency of spectrum utilization by defending against jamming attacks and corrupting the communications of the adversary network by executing its own jamming strategy. The proposed scheme, based on game theory, selects the best operational strategy (i.e., communications and jamming strategies) to maximize the successful communications and jamming rates of the network. Moreover, an estimation algorithm is investigated to predict the behavior of the adversary network in order to improve the efficiency of the proposed game theory-based scheme.

Cognitive orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems are spectrum-efficient yet vulnerable to intercarrier interference (ICI), especially in high-mobility scenarios. In this paper, the energy efficiency optimization problem in high-mobility cognitive OFDM system is considered. The aim is to maximize the energy efficiency by adapting subcarrier bandwidth, power allocation and sensing duration in the presence of ICI, under the constraints of the total power budget of secondary networks, the probabilistic interference limits for the protection of primary networks, and the subcarrier spacing restriction for high-mobility OFDM systems. In order to tackle the intractable non-convex optimization problem induced by ICI, an ICI-aware power allocation algorithm is proposed, by referring to noncooperative game theory. Moreover, a near-optimal subcarrier bandwidth search algorithm based on golden section methods is also presented to maximize the system energy efficiency. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can achieve a considerable energy efficiency improvement by up to 133% compared to the traditional static subcarrier bandwidth and power allocation schemes.

In Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs), spectrum sensing is performed by secondary (unlicensed) users to utilize transmission opportunities, so-called white spaces or spectrum holes, in the primary (licensed) frequency bands. Secondary users (SUs) perform sensing upon arrival to find an idle channel for transmission as well as during transmission to avoid interfering with primary users (PUs). In practice, spectrum sensing is not perfect and sensing errors including false alarms and misdetections are inevitable. In this paper, we develop a continuous-time Markov chain model to study the effect of false alarms and misdetections of SUs on several performance measures including the collision rate between PUs and SUs, the throughput of SUs and the SU delay in a CRN. Numerical results indicate that sensing errors can have a high impact on the performance measures.

In this paper, we propose filter-and-forward beamforming (FF-BF) for cognitive two-way relay networks in which secondary users employ an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system. Secondary transceivers communicate with each other through multiple relays to obtain BF gain as well as to suppress the interference between the primary and secondary users who share the same spectrum. We consider two FF-BF design methods to optimize the relay filter. The first method enhances the quality of service of the secondary network by maximizing the worst subcarrier signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) subject to transmit power constraints. The second method suppresses the interference from the secondary network to the primary network through the minimization of the relay transmission power subject to subcarrier SINR constraints. Simulation results show that the proposed FF-BF improves system performance in comparison to amplify-and-forward relay BF.