2009 Fifth International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks
Clustering-based Compressive Wide-band Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio
Network
Fan Deng1, Fanzi Zeng1, Renfa Li1
1
College of Computer and Communication, Hunan University
Changsha, Hunan, China
E-mail: gife2008dengfan@163.com, zengfanzi@126.com, lirenfa@vip.sina.com
Abstract—Spectrum detection technology is one of the key
technologies in Cognitive Radio Network (CRN), and its
primary task is to identify the existence of spectrum holes and
the appearance of authorized users. In order to meet the hard
real-time and high reliable requirements of the spectrum
detection in CRN, this paper presents a novel wide-band
spectrum sensing algorithm, called clustering-based joint
compressive sensing(C-JCS), which combines hierarchical
data-fusion idea with jointly compressive reconstruction
technology. To validate the efficiency and effectiveness, we
compare the C-JCS with independent compressive sensing
(ICS) and joint compressive sensing (JCS) in the detection
probability, false-alarm probability and algorithm execution
time under the circumstance of different SNR and compression
ratio. The simulation results show that the C-JCS can sense the
wide-band spectrum with high accuracy in time, so as to meet
the requirements of the spectrum sensing in CRN.
Keywords-cognitive radio network; compressive sensing;
wideband spectrum detection; maximum entropy clustering; data
fusion
I. INTRODUCTION
With the fast development and great richness of wireless
radio technology, wireless spectrum has become the most
valuable and needful resources ever now. As a dynamic
spectrum resource utilization technology, cognitive radio
(CR) has received recent attention around the world. In CRN,
under the condition of protecting the authorized user
(primary user) from interfering, the fast and accurate
detection of spectrum holes is the crucial premise and key
procedure to improve the spectrum utilization ratio.
Currently, most of the spectrum sensing technology is
narrowband-based, whose detection efficiency is low, this
entails new spectrum sensing approaches with hard real-time
character to emerge, wide-band spectrum sensing is the
direction of development in future CRN. In addition, due to
shadow fading effect, multipath effect and uncertainty of
noise [1], [2] in practical applications, if the spectrum
sensing is done by single CR user, the detection performance
can not meet the hard real-time and high reliable
requirements of CRN system. So we can use space diversity
to improve the detection performance through the
cooperation between CR users. Current cooperative spectrum
detection approaches [3], [4], [5] need CR users to keep
silent with the help of high-level protocol, which lower the
throughput of the network. Yet, if CR users can
communicate at the same time, the network throughput can
978-0-7695-3935-5/09 $26.00 © 2009 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/MSN.2009.59
be increased, but there is little research about this right now.
Meanwhile, taking the data fusion approaches into account,
the distributed way needs CR users to communicate with
each other, so the computational complexity of each CR
users are high, and for the centralized approach, all the
sensing information flocking to the fusion center will make it
vulnerable to network congestion. Considering all the
problems mentioned above, we propose an algorithm called
C-JCS in this paper, which combines hierarchical data-fusion
idea with jointly compressive reconstruction technology by
Compressive Sensing (CS) theory to realize the wide-band
spectrum sensing. The simulation results show that the C-
JCS algorithm can sense the wide-band signal accurately and
efficiently, and also relieve the data fusion center from the
heavy pressure of computation.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In
section 2, basic principles of CS are reviewed and the system
model is briefly described. In section 3, detail of C-JCS is
given, and then we introduce the ICS and JCS. Simulation
results are shown in section 4, with conclusions drawn in
section 5.
II. PERLIMINARIES
A. Basic Principles of CS
Suppose that x ∈ R N ×1 is a signal, its Nyquist sampling is
{ x1 , , xN } , let Ψ = {ψ 1 ,ψ 2 ,...,ψ N } be a basis of vectors
spanning R N . When we say that x is sparse, we mean that
x is well approximated by a linear combination of a small
set of vectors from Ψ . That is, there exists a set of indices
{n1 , , nK } ⊂ {1, , N } for small K N such that
x ≈ ∑ i =1θ niψ ni , we say that x is K − sparse in basis Ψ ,
K
and we call Ψ the sparse basis. The CS theory states that it
is possible to construct a measurement matrix Φ M × N where
M N , yet the measurements y = Φx preserve the
essential information about K − sparse signal x , with
M = cK , and if c is bigger, the measurement performance
will be better [6]. Usually Φ M × N is Gaussian or Bernoulli
random matrix. The measuring expression is:
y = ΦΨα = Φx (1)
It is obvious that the dimension of y in (1) is much lower
than that of x , so there are infinite solutions to this
equation, which means that this problem is uncertain and it
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is hard to reconstruct the original signal. But under the
situation that x is K − sparse and Φ is conditional, it was
proved signal x can be accurately reconstructed by solving
the optimal problem of 1 normal number with y [7],
which can be showed as follows:
αˆ = arg min α 1 subject to ΦΨα = y
α
x̂ = Ψαˆ (2)
CS theory [8] shows that it can accurately or near
accurately reconstruct the original signal with a much lower
sampling ratio compared with that of Nyquist by using a
special sensing matrix to clear the redundant information in
sparse signal, so this gives strong theory support to wide-
band spectrum sensing.
B. System Model
Common
PU
PU
Innovations
PU
Figure 1. CRN model (PU: primary user, Common: z , Innovations: zi ).
Assuming that there are several primary users and C CR
users in CRN, and the primary users use the authorized
spectrum to communicate with each other discontinuously.
In one sensing circle, the signal received by I ( I ≤ C ) CR
users (we call these sensing CR users nodes) is x1 , x2 ,..., xI
respectively, xi = z + zi , with z and zi represents the signal
from primary users and local users respectively. Because the
primary users’ power covers the whole CRN, so all z that
reflect primary users’ spectrum occupancy situation have the
same sparsity, that means all z are K − sparse in basis Ψ ,
this can be expressed as: z 0 = k . For active CR users’ low
launching power, their signal can only be sensed by nodes in
a certain area, so zi which reflecting local CR user's
spectrum occupancy situation have different sparsity, that
means zi is K i − sparse in Ψ , this can be expressed as
zi 0
= ki . This CRN model is depicted in Figure 1.
III. CLUSTERING-BASED COMPRESSIVE WIDE-BAND
SPECTRUM SENSING
For C-JCS, firstly, it use the Maximum Entropy
Clustering (MEC) [9] to divide all the sensing nodes into
several clusters. Secondly, each nodes within one cluster
locally acquires the compressive measurement and send
them to head node. Thirdly, each head node chooses the
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optimal measurement data from all received data, then sends
the chosen data to the fusion center. The rule is to select the
measurement data of biggest absolute value [10] to keep the
spectrum occupancy situation maximally. Finally, fusion
center uses the joint reconstruction scheme (5) which is
proposed in this paper to reconstruct wide-band spectrum.
The execution process is depicted in Figure 2.
The advantages of the C-JCS are:
1) The data quantity can be decreased largely by head
nodes for it only send the optimal measurement data to
fusion center, in where the data processing pressure can be
reduced greatly as well.
2) For the signal sensed by near CR users are of much
greater relevance which can ensure jointly reconstruct
accutately, and by using the MEC, the sum of the square of
the distance between the cluster members can reach to
minimum, this can avoid missing some important
information when make choice and keep the maximum
relevance between adjacent CR users, so as to reliably
reconstruct the wide-band spectrum in fusion center.
3) The dynamic change of head nodes during the
sensing stage will be conducive to the loading balance and
lifetime extension of CRN.
It is undeniable that clustering can also brings the
computation overhead and communication energy
consumption in the initial phase, but taken all factors into
consideration, we think it gains more than it loses.
nodes Compressive yi
MEC clusterj
Measuring
Optimal yj Jointly
Choosing Reconstruction
Figure 2. The execution process of C-JCS.
A. The Descriptions about C-JCS Algorithm
Assuming that I sensing nodes can be divided into
J ( 2 ≤ J ≤ I ) clusters, the MEC expression Ε(u, v) is:
J I J I
Ε(u , v) = ∑∑ u ji d 2ji + λ −1 ∑∑ u ji log u ji (3)
j =1 i =1 j =1 i =1
where u ji ∈ (0,1) represents the probability of the i th node
belonging to the j th cluster; d ji = χ i − v j represents the
distance between the head node v j and the member node
χ i ; λ is the entropy factor; u = {u ji }J × I is a Membership
Grade matrix.
We can derive the iterative formula of Membership
Grade and head node by using Lagrange multiplier as
follows:
 − λ d ji
u (jil +1) = e (4) B⋅N
J the samples of Ω q is K , with K − 1 = , so the statistic
∑e − λ d ki fs ⋅ Q
k =1 expression of spectrum analysis that use the frequency
I
response estimation is as follows:
∑u ( l +1)
ji iξ q ( K −1) +1
v (jl +1) = i =1
I (5) Tq = ∑ Ω q (k ) , q = 1, 2,..., Q (9)
∑u ( l +1)
ji
k = ( q −1)( K −1) +1
i =1 and the decision rule is given by:
where ξi represents the location of the i th node. Suppose H1
>
we acquire head node set v = {v1 , v2 , , vJ } , sensing nodes Tq ϒ (10)
<
{ }
of the j th cluster χ1 , χ 2 ,...χ n j , the member nodes of j th
H0

where H1 and H 0 denote the hypotheses of signal being

cluster send their compressed measurement data to the head present and absent respectively, and ϒ is the decision
node v j , then v j choose the optimal measurement data y j threshold. If H1 is true, channel q is being occupied,
and send it to the fusion center, where it will make the otherwise we think that channel q is a spectrum hole.
reconstruction based on the following equation:
⎡ y1 ⎤ ⎡ Φ1 x1 ⎤ ⎡Φ1 0 ⎤ ⎡ z + z1 ⎤
0 0
The implementation process of C-JCS algorithm can be
⎢ y ⎥ ⎢Φ x ⎥ ⎢ 0 Φ2 ⎥⎢z + z ⎥
0 0
summarized as follows:
yJM ×1 = ⎢ 2⎥ = ⎢ 2 2 ⎥= ⎢ ⎥⎢ 2⎥
• Initialize the head node's location:
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢0 0 ⎥⎢ 0 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢
⎣ y J ⎦ ⎣ Φ J xJ ⎦ ⎣ 0
⎥⎢
0 0 Φ J ⎦ ⎣ z + zJ ⎦
⎥
v (0) = {v1(0) , v2(0) , , vJ(0) } , and set the convergence
(6)
⎡ Φ1 0 0 0 ⎤ ⎡I I 0 0 ⎤⎡ z ⎤ threshold values as ε .
⎢0 Φ 0 0 ⎥⎥ ⎢ I 0 I 0 ⎥⎢z ⎥
=⎢ 2 ⎢ ⎥⎢ 1⎥ • Use (4) and (5) to alternately update the Membership
⎢0 0 ⎥⎢ ⎥⎢ ⎥
( )<ε ,
0
⎢ ⎥⎢
ΦJ ⎦ ⎣I 0 0
⎥⎢ ⎥ Grade and head node until max v (jl +1) − v (jl )
⎣0 0 0 I ⎦ ⎣ zJ ⎦
⎡ A1 A1 0 0 ⎤⎡ z ⎤ then output the clustering result and head nodes.
⎢A ⎥⎢z ⎥
=⎢ 2
0 A2 0 ⎥⎢ 1⎥ = Λ • Use the optimal expression y j = ym with
JM ×[( J +1) N ] × Z[( J +1) N ]×1
⎢ ⎥⎢ ⎥
⎢
⎣ AJ 0 0
⎥⎢ ⎥
AJ ⎦ ⎣ z J ⎦ m = arg max
i =1,…, n j
(y )i to choose among the
Signal xi can be sparsely expressed as compressive measurement matrix of
xi = z + zi = Ψθ + Ψθ i in basis Ψ , so (6) can also be { }
nodes χ1 , χ 2 ,...χ n j and output the optimal result:
rewritten as follows:
yj .
⎡ y1 ⎤ ⎡ Ψθ ⎤ ⎡Ψ 0 0 ⎤⎡θ ⎤
⎢y ⎥ ⎢ Ψθ ⎥ ⎢0 Ψ 0 ⎥ ⎢θ ⎥ • Solve the optimization problem (8) to obtain θ ans .
y = ⎢ 2⎥ = Λ⎢ 1⎥ = Λ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ 1 ⎥ = ΛΘθ ′ (7)
⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢
⎢
⎥
⎥
⎢
⎢
⎥⎢ ⎥
⎥⎢ ⎥
• {
Extract θ ,θ1 ,..., θ J } from θ ans and make summation
⎣ yJ ⎦ ⎣ Ψθ J ⎦ ⎣0 0 Ψ ⎦ ⎣θ J ⎦ about it, and then output ℜ .
where {θ , θ1 ,...,θ J } are all column vectors of N × 1 . We can • Calculate the statistical value Tq according to (9),
use the CS theory to resolve θ ′ as follows: and then make decisions about all channels’
occupation situations according to (10).
( P) : θ ans = arg min θ ′ 1 ,
θ′
B. Decriptions about ICS and JCS
subject to (c1): y = ΛΘθ ′ or (8)
In order to verify the validity of C-JCS, we compare it
(c 2): y − ΛΘθ ′ 2 ≤ ε with ICS and JCS, so in this section we will introduce the
where ICS and JCS.
θ ans = [(θ )T , (θ1 )T ,..., (θ J )T ]T , • ICS
Let ℜ = θ + θ1 + ⋅⋅⋅ + θ J the sensed wide-band spectrum, and
For ICS [11], [12], the nodes use the sensed compressive
the corresponding Power Spectral Density (PSD) ℜ , then measurement data to reconstruct the wide-band spectrum
we can detect the spectrum holes by using of the spectrum independently, and then it makes decisions about the
analysis. channels’ occupation situations by spectrum analysis and
Supposing that the spectrum range B of interest was sends the result to the fusion center. Lastly, according to
divided into Q channels, we index it as: some decision rule (we use “or” rule in this paper), the fusion
center do the final decisions to finish the fusion of all
ch = {ch1 , ch2 ,..., chQ } , the PSD of the q th channel is Ω q , received decisions.

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 In this algorithm, what the node send is not compressive DS
measurement data but simple spectrum decisions so the Pf = 0
(11)
energy consumption is low. In fusion center the computation ω
for decision fusion is much lower than that of the joint A. Detection Performance Versus SNR
reconstruction, so the computing time is shorter. But for the
spectrum sensing is done by single CR user, the false-alarm We set the compression rate as 1 − α = 0.5 , that is the
probability is high and fault-tolerance ability is poor. sampling number M is 128, and consider the SNR of interest
in the range of [-20dB, 20dB], with an interval of 5dB. We
• JCS did 100 times of test in each SNR, and the statistical average
value of detection probability and false-alarm probability for
For JCS [11], [12], the nodes first send the sensed these three algorithms are shown in Figure 3.
compressive measurement data to the fusion center directly, 1
then the fusion center jointly reconstructs the wide-band

Detection Probability
0.8
spectrum, then the spectrum decisions are made by 0.6
thresholding the recovered spectrum. In this algorithm, the 0.4
fusion center needs to know the measurement from all the 0.2
C-JCS
ICS
CR users, which will cause the network congestion. Hence, JCS

JCS are not suitable for large scale CRN.

0
-20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
SNR(dB)

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS 0.5

False-alarm Probability
C-JCS
In this section we compare the performance of the 0.4 ICS

proposed C-JCS with that of ICS and JCS. We consider the 0.3 JCS

wide-band spectrum of interest ranges from 0 to 60 MHz, 0.2

containing 60 channels of 1MHz and encode it as 0.1

ch = {ch1 , ch2 ,..., ch60 } , so Q = 60 . In one sensing circle, 0

-20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20

there are three primary users communicating with the centre SNR(dB)

frequency of 9.5 MHz, 29.5 MHz and 49.5 MHz respectively,
and their signal bandwidth is 1 MHz. Simultaneously, there
are 6 CR users communicating with three kind of center
frequency: 19.5 MHz, 39.5 MHz and 54.5 MHz, and their
signal bandwidth are 1 MHz as well. In the other words,
there are only 6 out of 60 channels being occupied. The
number of nodes are I = 12 . The communication uses BPSK
modulation signal, and the number of BPSK symbols is 2.
The Nyquist sampling frequency is f S = 128 MHZ, and the
Nyquist sampling number is N =256. The compressive
sampling number is M = α N . The compression ratio is
Figure 3. Detection performance versus SNR
B. Detection Performance Versus Compression Rate
We set the SNR as 20dB, and consider the compression
rate of interest as 0.5, 0.75, 0.875, 0.9375, 0.96875
respectively, we did 100 times of test in each compressive
ration, and the statistical average value of detection
probability and false-alarm probability for these three
algorithms are shown in Figure 4.
1

1 − α . The random measurement matrix Φ i is Gaussian

Detection Probability

0.8

distributed. The sparse basis Ψ is Fourier transformation 0.6

matrix with the order N . The decision threshold of different 0.4 C-JCS

parameters is an experience value which is set by statistical 0.2 ICS

JCS
averaging of 100 experiment results. The noise is white 0
0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
Gaussian noise (GWGN). Compression rate [N-M/N]

{ }
If chO = chO1 , chO2 ,..., chOβ represents the index of the 0.5
False-alarm Probability

C-JCS
0.4 ICS
occupied channels and DO = [ DO1 , DO2 ,..., DOβ ] represents 0.3 JCS

the decision’s result of channel chO , then the detection 0.2

probability is defined as: 0.1

DO 0 0
0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
Pd = (10) Compression rate [N-M/N]
β
Figure 4. Detection performance versus compression rate
{
If chS = chS1 , chS2 ,..., chSω } represents the location label
of spectrum holes and DS = [ DS1 , DS2 ,..., DSω ] represents the C. Algorithm Execution Time Comparisons
decision’s result of channel chS , then the false-alarm When we set the compression rate is 0.5, and consider
probability is defined as: the SNR of interest in the range of [-20dB, 20dB], with an

221
interval of 5dB, the execution time of these three algorithms ACKNOWLEDGMENT
are show in Figure 5 (a). When we set the SNR as 20dB, and This research was supported in part by the National
consider the compression rate of interest as 0.5, 0.75, 0.875, Natural Science Foundation under Grant 60903019, and by
0.9375, 0.96875 respectively, the execution time of these the Doctoral Program of Higher Specialized Research Fund
three algorithms are show in Figure 5 (b). under Grants 20070532089, 200805321056.
1000

800
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V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a novel algorithm called C-JCS is proposed
to do wide-band spectrum sensing in CRN. Solution based
on hierarchical data-fusion of clustering and jointly
compressive reconstruction of CS to detect the wide-band
spectrum holes are derived and tested. The C-JCS algorithm
offers evident advantages over the conventional use of
narrowband spectrum sensing technologies, in terms of both
reliability and real-time in detecting dynamic spectrum of
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