Adaptive decision fusion based cooperative spectrum sensing for cognitive radio systems

In this paper, an online Adaptive Decision Fusion (ADF) framework is proposed for the central spectrum awareness engine of a spectrum sensor network in Cognitive Radio (CR) systems. Online learning approaches are powerful tools for problems where drifts in concepts take place. Cooperative spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks is such a problem where channel characteristics and utilization patterns change frequently. The importance of this problem stems from the requirement that secondary users must adjust their frequency utilization strategies in such a way that the communication performance of the primary users would not be degraded by any means. In the proposed framework, sensing values from several sensor nodes are fused together by weighted linear combination at the central spectrum awareness engine. The weights are updated on-line according to an active fusion method based on performing orthogonal projections onto convex sets describing power reading values from each sensor. The proposed adaptive fusion strategy for cooperative spectrum sensing can operate independent from the channel type between the primary user and secondary users. Results of simulations and experiments for the proposed method conducted in laboratory are also presented. © 2011 IEEE.