Simultaneous Sensing and Transmission for Cognitive Radios with Imperfect Signal Cancellation

In conventional cognitive radio systems, the secondary user employs a “listen-before-talk” paradigm, where it senses if the primary user is active or idle, before it decides to access the licensed spectrum. However, this method faces challenges with the most important being the reduction of the secondary user’s throughput, as no data transmission takes place during the
sensing period. In this context, the idea of simultaneous spectrum sensing and data transmission is proposed. The present work studies a system model where this concept is obtained through the collaboration of the secondary transmitter with the secondary receiver. First, the secondary receiver decodes the signal from the secondary transmitter, subsequently, removes it from the total received signal and then, carries out spectrum sensing in the remaining signal in order to decide about the presence/absence of the primary user. Different from the existing literature, this paper takes into account the imperfect signal cancellation, evaluating how the decoding errors affect the sensing reliability and derives the analytical expressions for the probability of false alarm. Finally, numerical results are presented illustrating the accuracy of the proposed analysis.