Experimental assessment of tradeoffs among spectrumsensing platforms

This paper reports experimental results comparing the performance of four platforms employed in spectrum sensing and dynamic spectrum access research: a sensing engine developed at imec and built around a prototype RFIC; the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) with the Iris software defined radio (SDR) solution; the TelosB sensor network platform; and the Wi-Spy low cost spectrum sensor solution targeted at the ISM band. We use experimental data to derive the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) of each of the four platforms. We observe that for low signal powers, narrow bandwidth signals, high shadowing, or stringent probability of false alarm (PFA) requirements tradeoffs among the platforms tested are most pronounced, whereas for high signal powers, large bandwidths, stable environments, and more flexible PFA requirements less expensive, commercial-off-the-shelf equipment performs sufficiently well.