PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF MAXIMAL RATIO COMBINING (MRC) AND SQUARE LAW COMBINING (SLC), IN ENERGY DETECTOR FOR COGNITIVE RADIO NETWORKS OVER NAKAGAMI FADING CHANNELS

In this paper, we compare two cooperative reception diversity schemes in energy detector for cognitive radio networks. Energy detector is equipped with the Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) and Square Law Combining (SLC), where spectrum sensing performance is evaluated. Both the schemes are compared in single and multiple cognitive relay scenarios. The cognitive relays use amplify-and-forward relaying scheme for forwarding the received information towards the cognitive receiver. The assumed communication links are Nakagami-m fading where all the links are independent and identically distributed. The Nakagami shape parameter ? is varied from 1 to 3. The receiver performance parameters, the probability of detection and false alarm are compared for MRC and SLC. The obtained simulated results help in the understanding and measuring of the improvement achieved through these diversity techniques in the energy detector.