Pietra-Ricci Index Detector for Centralized Data Fusion Cooperative Spectrum Sensing

The Pietra-Ricci index is often used in economic and social sciences as a measure of inequality. In this Correspondence, the index is adapted to the cooperative spectrum sensing scenario, yielding the Pietra-Ricci index detector (PRIDe). The PRIDe applies the index to distinguish the shapes of the received signal sample covariance matrices in the situations of presence and absence of the primary sensed signal. It is shown that the PRIDe is very simple, is robust against time-varying noise and received signal powers, exhibits the constant false alarm rate property, and outperforms state-of-the-art detectors in many situations.