IEEE Communications Magazine • April 2008
32
0163-6804/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
INTRODUCTION
Driven by consumers’ increasing interest in wire-
less services, demand for radio spectrum has
increased dramatically. Moreover, with the
emergence of new wireless devices and applica-
tions, and the compelling need for broadband
wireless access, this trend is expected to continue
in the coming years.
The conventional approach to spectrum man-
agement is very inflexible in the sense that each
operator is granted an exclusive license to oper-
ate in a certain frequency band. However, with
most of the useful radio spectrum already allo-
cated, it is becoming exceedingly hard to find
vacant bands to either deploy new services or
enhance existing ones.
On the other hand, as evidenced in recent
measurements, the licensed spectrum is rarely
utilized continuously across time and space [1].
Figure 1 shows spectrum utilization in the fre-
quency bands between 30 MHz and 3 GHz aver-
aged over six different locations [2]. The
relatively low utilization of the licensed spectrum
suggests that spectrum scarcity, as perceived
today, is largely due to inefficient fixed frequen-
cy allocations rather than any physical shortage
of spectrum. This observation has prompted the
regulatory bodies to investigate a radically differ-
ent access paradigm where secondary (unli-
censed) systems are allowed to opportunistically
utilize the unused primary (licensed) bands,
commonly referred to as white spaces. In particu-
lar, the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) has already expressed its interest in per-
mitting unlicensed access to white spaces in the
TV bands [3]. This interest stems in part from
the great propagation characteristics of the TV
bands and their relatively predictable spatiotem-
poral usage characteristics. Building on this
interest, the IEEE has formed a working group
(IEEE 802.22) to develop an air interface for
opportunistic secondary access to the TV spec-
trum. In order to protect the primary systems
from the adverse effects of secondary users’
interference, white spaces across frequency, time
and space should be reliably identified. Table 1
lists a variety of approaches that may be
employed for this purpose.
The first two approaches charge the primary
systems with the task of providing secondary
users with current spectrum usage information
by either registering the relevant data (e.g., the
primary system’s location and power as well as
expected duration of usage) at a centralized
database or broadcasting this information on
regional beacons [4]. While leading to simplified
secondary transceivers, these methods require
some modifications to the current licensed sys-
tems and, as such, are incompatible with legacy
primary users. Moreover, their deployment is
costly and requires positioning information at
ABSTRACT
Opportunistic unlicensed access to the (tem-
porarily) unused frequency bands across the
licensed radio spectrum is currently being inves-
tigated as a means to increase the efficiency of
spectrum usage. Such opportunistic access calls
for implementation of safeguards so that ongo-
ing licensed operations are not compromised.
Among different candidates, sensing-based
access, where the unlicensed users transmit if
they sense the licensed band to be free, is partic-
ularly appealing due to its low deployment cost
and its compatibility with the legacy licensed sys-
tems. The ability to reliably and autonomously
identify unused frequency bands is envisaged as
one of the main functionalities of cognitive
radios. In this article we provide an overview of
the regulatory requirements and major chal-
lenges associated with the practical implementa-
tion of spectrum sensing functionality in
cognitive radio systems. Furthermore, we outline
different design trade-offs that have to be made
in order to enhance various aspects of the sys-
tem’s performance.
COGNITIVE RADIO COMMUNICATIONS
AND NETWORKS
Amir Ghasemi, Communications Research Centre Canada and University of Toronto
Elvino S. Sousa, University of Toronto
Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio
Networks: Requirements,
Challenges and Design Trade-offs
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