Biologically Inspired Consensus-Based Spectrum Sensing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks with Cognitive Radios

Cognitive radios, which are capable of sensing their surrounding environment and adapting their internal parameters, have been considered in mobile ad hoc networks. Secondary users can cooperatively sense the spectrum to detect the presence of primary users. In this article we present a novel biologically inspired consensus-based cooperative spectrum sensing scheme in CR-MANETs. Our scheme is based on recent advances in consensus algorithms that have taken inspiration from self-organizing behavior of animal groups such as birds, fish, ants, honeybees, and others. Unlike the existing cooperative spectrum sensing schemes, such as the OR-rule or the 1-out-of-N rule, there is no need for a common receiver to do the data fusion for reaching the final decision. A secondary user needs only to set up local interactions without a centralized node in CR-MANETs. Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.