Threshold Optimization in Energy Detection Scheme for Maximizing the Spectrum Utilization

Cognitive radio is a new paradigm in wireless communication for improving the spectrum utilization. Spectrum sensing is a fundamental component of cognitive radio networks. Among all the available spectrum sensing algorithms, energy detection scheme has gained more interest owing to its simple implementation. In this paper, we propose a threshold setting algorithm for energy detection scheme which aims at maximizing the spectrum utilization. A closed-form expression for adaptive threshold for maximal spectrum utilization is derived and analyzed. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms the conventional methods of determining the threshold.