Blind Distributed Spectrum Sensing with Binary Local Decisions through the Maximum Energy Indicator

This paper proposes a new scheme for distributed spectrum sensing in the blind scenario, wherein the channel gains, the signal power, and the noise power are unknown. By utilizing energy detection and homogeneity test concepts, the cognitive radios (CRs) make binary local decisions based on whether a CR has the maximum sample energy within a sampling window among all CRs. With independent channels, the use of this maximum energy indicator generates a desirable discrepancy among the CR decisions when the frequency band is in use. Closed-form results on the distribution of the CR decisions are obtained for Gaussian noises and signal. Asymptotic analytical expressions are derived on the detection performance of the proposed scheme. Simulation results show the advantage of the proposed scheme and validate the analysis.