Sensing schemes for DVB-T in cognitive radio context

The core task of spectrum sensing in cognitive radio is to determine vacant spectrum timely and reliably. As the first cognitive radio based standard, IEEE 802.22 wireless regional area network aims to opportunistically utilize the underutilized VHF/UHF bands, therefore, reliably sensing incumbent signals on these bands arises as a key technique for IEEE 802.22 realization. Unfortunately, no algorithm so far has been discussed for one main incumbent signal, digital video broadcasting-terrestrial (DVB-T) signal, on VHF/UHF bands. In this paper, several different DVB-T signal sensing schemes are proposed, including both the single and multiple antenna receiving scenarios. All these proposed sensing methods exploit the inherent characteristics of DVB-T signals. The corresponding computational complexities of these sensing schemes are analyzed consequently. Simulations show that our proposed schemes (both for single and multiple antenna situations) can effectively determine the existence or absence of DVB-T signals.