Sparse correlation matching-based spectrum sensing for open spectrum communications

Abstract

To deal with the current spectrum scarcity problem and exploiting the fact that exclusive access through tightly regulated licensing leads to idle spectrum, cognitive radio has been proposed as a way to reuse this underutilized spectrum in an opportunistic manner, i.e., allowing the use of temporarily unused licensed spectrum to secondary users who have no spectrum licenses. To protect the licensed users from the cognitive users ’ interference, the opportunistic user requires knowledge of the original license holder activity. In this article, a feature-based approach for spectrum sensing based on periodic non-uniform sampling is addressed. In particular, we face the compressed-sampling version of detecting predetermined spectral shapes in sparse wideband regimes by means of a correlation-matching procedure.