Jointly optimizing sensing time and resource allocation in multichannel cognitive radio networks

Spectrum sensing is a key technique for determining the spectrum available in cognitive radio (CR) networks. In this paper, we study how to jointly optimize sensing time and resource allocation to maximize the sum transmission rate of all CR users of a multichannel CR network. We take into consideration the transmission power and interference constraints to protect primary users from harmful interference, as well as constraints of detection probability and false alarm probability. Under these constraints, we propose an asymptotically optimal resource allocation algorithm. The optimal sensing time can be obtained using the traditional one‐dimensional exhaustive search. However, owing to the high complexity of searching for the sensing time, we propose a simplified method to get the optimal sensing time under the assumption that false alarm probability is small. Simulation results show that the simplified method can obtain the optimal sensing time efficiently under strict constraint of false alarm probability. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.