Abstract: The parallel fusion model universalizes centralized and decentralized cooperative spectrum sensing as a three step process comprising of: local sensing, information reporting and information fusion. It is quite obvious that any amelioration in the performance quality of the constitutional steps would strengthen the overall performance of the cooperative spectrum sensing network. The performance metrics for a cooperative spectrum sensing network are the gain provided and overhead occurring (both in comparison with non cooperative scenario). An efficient cooperative sensing scheme promises a good tradeoff between both the metrics. In this work, the authors present a scheme providing improved cooperative gain for a centralized cooperative spectrum sensing network which employs hard combination at the fusion centre.

Keywords: Cognitive Radio (CR); Primary User (PU), Secondary User (SU); Cooperative Spectrum Sensing; Centralized Cooperative Spectrum Sensing; Hard combination.