Analysis of improved cyclostationary detector with SLC diversity over Nakagami-m fading channels

Spectrum sensing is a key technical challenge for cognitive radio (CR). It is well known that multi-cycle cyclostationarity (MC) detector is a powerful method for spectrum sensing. However, conventional MC detector is difficult to implement due to its high computational complexity. This paper pays attention to the fact that the computation complexity can be reduced by simplifying the test statistic of conventional MC detector. Based on this simplification process, an improved MC detector is proposed. Compared with the conventional one, the proposed detector has the low-computational complexity and high-accuracy on sensing performance. Subsequently, the sensing performance of proposed detector is investigated over Nakagami-m fading channels. Furthermore, the SLC diversity is introduced to improve the detection reliability over fading channels. The corresponding closed-form expression of average detection probability is derived by using the moment generation function (MGF) approach. Finally, simulation results verify the efficiency and accuracy of proposed detector, which contributes to a performance gain of approximately 3dB for 2-branches SLC even if serious Nakagami-m fading exist.