cogcom 16(6): e1

Research Article

A Hardware Prototype of a Flexible Spectrum Sensing Node for Smart Sensing Networks

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  • @ARTICLE{10.4108/eai.5-4-2016.151143,
    author={Ahmed Elsokary and Peter Lohmiller and V\^{a}clav Valenta and Hermann Schumacher},
    title={A Hardware Prototype of a Flexible Spectrum Sensing Node for Smart Sensing Networks},
    journal={EAI Endorsed Transactions on Cognitive Communications},
    volume={2},
    number={6},
    publisher={EAI},
    journal_a={COGCOM},
    year={2016},
    month={4},
    keywords={Spectrum Sensing, Multiband, Cognitive Radio, FPGA Implementation, Hardware Prototype, Periodogram, PSD, FFT},
    doi={10.4108/eai.5-4-2016.151143}
}
  • Ahmed Elsokary
    Peter Lohmiller
    Václav Valenta
    Hermann Schumacher
    Year: 2016
    A Hardware Prototype of a Flexible Spectrum Sensing Node for Smart Sensing Networks
    COGCOM
    EAI
    DOI: 10.4108/eai.5-4-2016.151143
Ahmed Elsokary1,*, Peter Lohmiller1, Václav Valenta1, Hermann Schumacher1
  • 1: Ulm University, Institute of Electron Devices and Circuits, Albert-Einstein-Allee 45, 89081 Ulm, Germany.
*Contact email: ahmed.elsokary@uni-ulm.de

Abstract

In this paper we present a prototype for a spectrum sensing node for a cognitive radio sensing network. Our prototype consists of a custom down-conversion front-end with an RF input frequency range from 300 MHz to 3 GHz and a Power Spectral Density (PSD) estimation algorithm implemented on a Virtex-6 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The base-band processing part is capable of calculating the PSD for a bandwidth upto 245.76 MHz achieving a resolution of 60 kHz and an online variable averaging functionality with a maximum of 32767 averages. We show the arithmetic optimization techniques used for the PSD evaluation to optimize FPGA resource usage. Real time performance and calculation of the PSD for real world signals in the GSM downlink, DECT and the UHF DVB-T bands are demonstrated.

Keywords
Spectrum Sensing, Multiband, Cognitive Radio, FPGA Implementation, Hardware Prototype, Periodogram, PSD, FFT
Received
2015-05-14
Accepted
2015-11-24
Published
2016-04-05
Publisher
EAI
http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/eai.5-4-2016.151143

Copyright © 2016 Ahmed Elsokary et al., licensed to EAI. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unlimited use, distribution and reproduction in any medium so long as the original work is properly cited.