Spatiotemporal sensing in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio networks need to continuously monitor spectrum to detect the presence of the licensed users. In this paper, we have exploited spatial diversity in multiuser networks to improve the spectrum sensing capabilities of centralized cognitive radio (CR) networks. We develop a fixed and a variable relay sensing scheme. The fixed relay scheme employs a relay that is fixed in location to help the cognitive network base station detect the presence of the primary user. The variable relay sensing scheme employs cognitive users distributed at various locations as relays to sense data and to improve the detection capabilities. We theoretically prove that the proposed variable relay sensing scheme effectively reduces the average detection time which is also illustrated by an insightful example. Finally, we introduce a useful metric to measure the performance of fixed relay and variable relay schemes.