Evaluation of Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Based on Large Scale Measurements

Dynamic spectrum access to unused licensed spectrum has been proposed as solution to the spectrum scarcity problem. Reliable detection of any primary user signal is crucial for the required interference-free operation. It has been shown that cooperative sensing has the potential to alleviate propagation effects such as fast fading or shadowing and thus to improve sensing reliability. However, there is a lack of practical studies confirming the theoretical results. In this paper, the authors present the measurement setup for cooperative sensing and detailed experimental results that prove the major findings. Cooperative sensing can improve the detection reliability and lower the sensitivity requirements on single sensors.