Spectrum Sensing of DVB-T2 Signals using a Low Computational Noise Power Estimation

Cognitive radio is a promising technology that answers the spectrum scarcity problem arising from the proliferation of wireless networks and mobile services. In this paper, spectrum sensing of digital video broadcasting-second generation terrestrial (DVB-T2) signals in AWGN, WRAN and COST207 multipath fading environment are considered. ED is known to achieve an increased performance among low computational complexity detectors, but it is susceptible to noise uncertainty. Taking into consideration the edge pilot and scattered pilot periodicity in DVB-T2 signals, a low computational noise power estimator is proposed. Analytical forms for the detector are derived. Simulation results show that with the noise power estimator, ED significantly outperforms the pilot correlation-based detectors. Simulation also show that the proposed scheme enables ED to obtain increased detection performance in multi-path fading environments. Moreover, based on this algorithm a practical sensing scheme for cognitive radio networks is proposed.