Practical implementation of real-time cognitive radio energy detector using frequency reconfigurable filtenna

ABSTRACT

In this paper, a new design of cognitive radio (CR) system based on a reconfigurable filtenna, RF power detector, and Raspberry pi is proposed. It provides a fast and cheap solution to efficiently detect the spectrum holes over the frequency range from 2.37 to 3.69 GHz. The frequency scanning is performed by using a compact narrow bandwidth filtenna. The electrical frequency reconfiguration is achieved by incorporating a varactor diode into the filtenna structure. Under the control of Raspberry pi, the frequency tuning is done by varying the voltage across the varactor from 0 to 30 Volts. Followed by the filtenna, an RF power detector circuit is utilized to monitor the primary user (PU) existence. Different scenarios of measurements are carried out to verify the reliability and successfulness of the proposed prototype.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive radio
• spectrum sensing
• filtenna
• Energy detection
• Raspberry pi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hager Shawky Fouda

Hager Shawky Fouda received the BSc and MSc degrees in electronics and electrical communications engineering from Tanta university, Egypt in 2011 and 2018, respectively. Her MSc is dedicated to investigate a new spectrum sensing technique for cognitive radio and to implement a cognitive radio system using a frequency reconfigurable filtenna. She is currently pursuing the PhD degree in the field of MIMO cognitive radio networks. Her research interests are in statistical signal processing, cognitive radio, direction of arrival estimation and wireless communications.

Amr Hussein Hussein Abdullah

Amr Hussein Hussein Abdullah received a BSc degree in Electronics and electrical communications engineering from Tanta University, Egypt in 2001 and received his MSc, PhD, and Assoc. Prof. degrees from Tanta University in 2007, 2012, and 2017 respectively. Recently, he is working in the research areas of full-duplex transmit/receive antenna systems and digital antenna arrays beamforming application in DOA estimation, spectrum sensing in cognitive radio systems, BER and spectral efficiency enhancement of MIMO systems. Also, he introduced some research papers in the field of distributed antenna arrays beamforming.