Relay-Assisted Cross-Channel Gain Estimation for Spectrum Sharing

In cognitive radio networks, the cross-channel gain from a cognitive transmitter (CT) to a primary receiver (PR) is critical for spectrum sharing and obtaining the cross-channel gain is very difficult. Even though proactive estimation allows the CT to autonomously estimate the cross-channel gain, it may cause severe interference to the PR. This raises a new issue for spectrum sensing, called spectrum sensing interference. In this paper, we deal with the sensing interference and propose a relay-assisted method to conduct the proactive estimation, which obtains the cross-channel gain with much less interference to the PR. In our method, we let the CT act as a full-duplex amplify-and-forward relay to probe the close-loop power control between primary transceivers. By measuring the power adjustment of the primary signal, the CT estimates the cross-channel gain. Simulation results indicate that our method can reduce the sensing interference to an extremely low level.