Spectrum Sensor Hardware Implementation Based on Cyclostationary Feature Detector

Cognitive radios utilize spectrum sensors to provide information about the surrounding radio environment. This enables cognitive radios to communicate at the same frequency bands with existing (primary) radio systems, and thereby improve the utilization of spectral resources. Furthermore, the spectrum sensor must be able to guarantee that the cognitive radio devices do not interfere with the primary system transmissions. This paper describes a hardware implementation of a spectrum sensor based on cyclostationary feature detector, which has an improved detection performance achieved by decimation of the cyclic spectrum. Decimation also provides a simple way to control detection time and, therefore, allows trading the detection time to better probability of detection and vice versa. Implementation complexity in terms of power consumption and silicon area for a 65 nm CMOS process is evaluated. Measured detection performance is presented and detection of a 802.11g WLAN signal through air interface is demonstrated.