A Fully-Integrated UHF Receiver with Multi-Resolution Spectrum-Sensing (MRSS) Functionality for IEEE 802.22 Cognitive-Radio Applications

Recently, cognitive radio (CR) technology has been proposed as a way of increasing spectrum utilization efficiency. A CR system seeks to use the unoccupied spectrum segments by sensing the spectrum before transmitting to preserve the rights of privileged primary users (Haykin, 2006). IEEE 802.22 is the working group on wireless regional area network (WRAN) for the license-exempt use of the U.S. TV broadcasting band. Such use requires that new transceivers possess CR functionality. A fully-integrated CMOS receiver is presented with a CR spectrum-sensing functionality of arbitrary detection bandwidth over the UHF band. This capability is called multi-resolution spectrum sensing (MRSS).