Spectrum Monitoring Algorithms for Wireless and Satellite Communications

Nowadays, there is an increasing demand for more efficient utilization of the radio frequency
spectrum as new terrestrial and space services are deployed resulting in the
congestion of the already crowded frequency bands. In this context, spectrum monitoring
is a necessity. Spectrum monitoring techniques can be applied in a cognitive radio
network, exploiting the spectrum holes and allowing the secondary users to have access
in an unlicensed frequency band for them, when it is not occupied by the primary user.
Furthermore, spectrum monitoring techniques can be used for interference detection in
wireless and satellite communications. These two topics are addressed in this thesis.
In the beginning, a detailed survey of the existing spectrum monitoring techniques according
to the way that cognitive radio users 1) can detect the presence or absence of
the primary user; and 2) can access the licensed spectrum is provided. Subsequently, an
overview of the problem of satellite interference and existing methods for its detection
are discussed, while the contributions of this thesis are presented as well.
Moreover, this thesis discusses some issues in a cognitive radio system such as the reduction
of the secondary user's throughput of the conventional \listen before talk" access
method in the spectrum. Then, the idea of simultaneous spectrum sensing and data
transmission through the collaboration of the secondary transmitter with receiver is
proposed to address these concerns. First, the secondary receiver decodes the signal
from the secondary transmitter, then, removes it from the total received signal and finally, applies spectrum sensing in the remaining signal in order to decide if the primary
user is active or idle. The effects of the imperfect signal cancellation due to decoding
errors, which are ignored in the existing literature, are considered in our analysis. The
analytical expressions for the probabilities of false alarm and detection are derived and
numerical results through simulations are also presented to validate the proposed study.
Furthermore, the threat of interference for the satellite communications services is studied
in this thesis. It proposes the detection of interference on-board the satellite by
introducing a spectrum monitoring unit within the satellite transponder. This development
will bring several benefits such as faster reaction time and simplification of the
ground stations in multi-beam satellite systems. Then, two algorithms for the detection
of interference are provided. The first detection scheme is based on energy detector with
signal cancellation exploiting the pilot symbols. The second detection scheme considers
a two-stage detector, where first, the energy detector with signal cancellation in the pilot
domain is performed, and if required, an energy detector with signal cancellation in the
data domain is carried out in the second stage. Moreover, the analytical expressions for the probabilities of false alarm and detection are derived and numerical results through
simulations are provided to verify the accuracy of the proposed analysis.
Finally, this thesis goes one step further and the developed algorithms are evaluated
experimentally using software defined radios, particularly universal software radio peripherals
(USRPs), while it concludes discussing some open research topics.