A selective decision–fusion rule for cooperative spectrum sensing using energy detection

Increasing the number of terminals in a cognitive radio network is known to improve the accuracy of cooperative spectrum sensing at the cost of reducing the useful communication time. This downside can be partially mitigated using decision‐based fusion and/or sequential reporting. This paper proposes a novel selective decision‐based cooperative spectrum sensing strategy that limits the reporting time to a single reporting slot with a possibility for retransmissions using automatic repeat request. The terminal with the highest energy estimate sends its local decision to the fusion center to make a final decision. Potential decoding errors are mitigated using threshold‐based automatic repeat request. The performance of the proposed strategy is studied using rigorous mathematical analysis and intensive computer simulations. Results show observable performance enhancements compared with some benchmark strategies in terms of detection accuracy and agility. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.