Blind Cyclostationary Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radios

We propose a blind spectrum sensing method using signal cyclostationarity. Often, signal characteristics of the primary user (PU), such as carrier frequency, data rate, modulation and coding may not be known to cognitive users. This uncertainty introduces difficulties in searching for spectrum holes in cognitive radios. At a low signal-to-noise ratio, it has been understood that monitoring the presence of the PU's signal is hardly possible without knowing its cycle frequencies. The proposed sensing method makes it possible to detect the PU's signal without the relevant information of the signal attributes. Blind spectrum sensing is also much simpler than the conventional cyclostationary spectral correlation detection.