Optimal Entropy-Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing for Maritime Cognitive Radio Networks

Maritime cognitive radio networks (MCRNs) have recently been proposed for opportunistic utilization of the licensed band. Spectrum sensing is one of the key issues for the successful deployment of the MCRNs. The maritime environment is unique in terms of radio wave propagation over water, surface reflection and wave occlusions. In order to deal with the challenging maritime environment, we proposed an optimal entropy-based cooperative spectrum sensing. As the results of spectrum sensing are sensitive to the number of samples in an entropy-based local detection scheme, we first calculated the optimal number of samples. Next, a cooperative spectrum sensing scheme considering the conditions of the sea environment is proposed. Finally, the throughput optimization of the m-out-of-n rule is considered. Results revealed that although the existing schemes work well for the lower sea states, they fail to perform at higher sea states. Moreover, simulation results also indicated the robustness of the entropy-based scheme and the proposed cooperative spectrum sensing scheme at higher sea states in comparison with the traditional energy detector.