Analytical framework for the performance of energy detectors over α‐μ fading model with MRC diversity

Abstract

SummaryThe advancements towards the 5G technology are significantly reliant on the effective utilization of the radio spectrum. The scarcity of the spectrum is a barrier to the employment of emergent wireless multimedia. The cognitive radio (CR) technology has materialized as a reassuring remedy to the present problem of spectral scarcity. This study explores the statistical characterization of energy detector‐based cognitive radio device alongside diversity reception. The analysis is carried out with the postulation that the transmitting signal encounters fading, characterized by α‐μ fading channel. Initially, we present a PDF expression of the α‐μ fading model when subjected to maximal ratio combining (MRC) diversity reception. Utilizing this expression, the closed‐form expression of the average probability of detection (Pd) and the average area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) are derived in the terms of Fox's H function. The detection threshold has been optimized to improve the detection performance by curtailing the probability of error. Additionally, asymptotic results for Pd with various diversity combining cases are also obtained under high signal‐to‐noise‐ratio (SNR) regime. Furthermore, the result of Pd is applied to explore the execution of cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) with diversity reception. The accuracy and validation of the presented results are assured by comparison with the Monte Carlo simulation.