A Simple F–Test Based Spectrum Sensing Technique for MIMO Cognitive Radio Networks

An F–test detector with a simple analytical false alarm threshold expression is considered an alternative to the blind detectors which exhibit complicated analytical expressions. Proposed for a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) systems, the existing F–test requires the channel state information (CSI) as a prior knowledge. On the contrary, the CSI requirement renders a sensitivity to a CSI estimation error and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems guarantee better array gain, spatial diversity gain, spatial multiplexing gain, and interference reduction than SIMO systems. Accordingly, we present and evaluate the performance of a simple F–test based spectrum sensing technique that doesn’t require the knowledge of the CSI for the MIMO cognitive radio networks. For this detector, exact and asymptotic analytical performance closed-form expressions are derived. Simulations assess the performance of the presented detector and validate the derived closed-form expressions.