Theoretical Performance and Thresholds of the Multitaper Method for Spectrum Sensing

The use of multitaper spectrum (MTS) for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio (CR) has been investigated by a number of researchers. Meanwhile, its superior detection performance has been numerically demonstrated. Regardless of their importance, the theoretic performance and thresholds for MTS detectors remain unavailable in the literature. In this paper, we tackle such an issue, ending up with various closed-form analytic formulas for the probabilities of detection and false alarm with different settings including single-sensor and multisensor MTS detectors with perfect or inaccurate noise variance. The validity of theoretical formulas is intensively examined through numerical results and computer simulations.