Hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing for improving cognitive power line communication systems

Abstract

This paper introduces a hybrid cooperative spectrum sensing technique that exploits the existing diversity between power line and wireless media with the purpose of improving spectrum sensing functionalities in power line communication (PLC) systems, which operate in the frequency band between 1.7 and 100 MHz. To evaluate the performance of the proposed technique, a data set obtained from a measurement campaign is analyzed, and a feature evaluation reveals that the signal energy is the most relevant feature of all extracted ones. Also, the performance evaluation of the proposed technique shows that the exploitation of the existing diversity between signals acquired from both electric power grid and air can remarkably improve the detection of spectrum occupancy or holes in comparison to the sole use of one of them.