A multi-channel spectrum sensing scheme with filter bank realization for LTE signals

In cognitive ratio (CR), spectrum sensing is a crucial technique aiming at exploiting spectrum white spaces. This sensing task is more difficult for multiple channels in wide bands. In this paper, we investigate spectrum sensing tasks for long-term evolution (LTE) networks in large frequency-bands. We propose an effective spectrum sensing scheme to detect LTE signals and classify the cell-identities transmitted in multi-channels in parallel. To prove the concept and validate the performance of the proposed scheme, a secondary LTE transmission in TV bands is modeled in our simulations. At the perspective of realistic scenarios, the identified information could be utilized for some functions such as the co-ordination among secondary networks or initial-cell-search procedures between secondary user-equipments and their serving base-stations in the secondary LTE transmission. The simulation results show that the detection and classification performance of the proposed scheme is close tightly to that in the case of a single channel. The scheme works well in multi-path fading environment with carrier frequency offset (CFO) and is tolerant to noise uncertainty.