A two-stage spectrum sensing scheme based on energy detection and a novel multitaper method

Wideband spectrum sensing has drawn much attention in recent years since it provides more opportunities to the secondary users. However, wideband spectrum sensing requires a long time and a complex mechanism at the sensing terminal. A two-stage wideband spectrum sensing scheme is considered to proceed spectrum sensing with low time consumption and high performance to tackle this predicament. In this scheme, a novel multitaper spectrum sensing (MSS) method is proposed to mitigate the poor performance of energy detection (ED) in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region. The closed-form expression of the decision threshold is derived based on the Neyman-Pearson criterion and the probability of detection in the Rayleigh fading channel is analyzed. An optimization problem is formulated to maximize the probability of detection of the proposed two-stage scheme and the average sensing time of the two-stage scheme is analyzed. Numerical results validate the efficiency of MSS and show that the two-stage spectrum sensing scheme enjoys higher performance in the low SNR region and lower time cost in the high SNR region than the single-stage scheme.