Adaptive Energy-Efficient Design of Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio is a promising technology which can be used to solve the shortage of spectrum resource. As sensing nodes of the network, secondary users are usually battery powered. Making full use of the energy should be considered by balancing the tradeoff of energy and throughput. In this paper, we consider the overall throughput and energy consumption of the system. We propose a model for throughput and energy consumption with an adaptive factor to discuss the influences of sensing time and number of secondary users, and analyze the existence of an optimal point that get the maximum value of energy efficiency. Simulation results show that energy efficiency always have the optimal points in different fusion rules. Our findings indicate that cognitive radio network design, based on energy efficiency consideration, is feasible.