Abstract—Future cognitive radios will require use of both established emitter databases and local spectrum sensing to optimize their performance. We view these techniques as ways of estimating an RF environment map (RFEM), which characterizes theposition,directivity,power,andmodulation type of all relevant RF emitters in a geographical region of interest. Cognitive radios will make their best decisions when they have the best RFEM information available. Good RFEM estimates are facilitated by spectrum-sensing algorithmsthatexploitthecomplexstatisticsof moderncom-munication signals rather than relying on simplistic energy detection. We illustrate some of the ways that such statistics can be exploited using collected modern communications signals.

Index Terms—Cognitive Radio, Spectrum Sensing, Radio-Frequency Environment Maps, Cyclostationary Signal Pro¬cessing, Spectrum Management, Statistical Signal Process¬ing.

Cite:Chad Michael Spooner and Nilesh Khambekar, "A Signal-Processing Perspective on Signal-Statistics Exploitation in Cognitive Radio," Journal of Communications, vol. 7, no.7, pp.567-574, 2012. Doi: 10.4304/jcm.7.7.567-574