Channel State Classification in Cognitive Small-Cell Networks With Multiple Transmission Powers.

Cognitive small-cell networks have great potential in improving spectrum efficiency and mitigating inter-cell interference. Comprehensively classifying the channel states in cognitive small-cell networks is important for efficiently reusing the spectrum bands that are licensed to a macrocell. In this paper, we investigate channel state classification in cognitive small-cell networks with multilevels of transmission powers, including occupation detection of spectrum bands and transmission power classification of a macrocell base station (MBS). Specifically, two scenarios including a priori known signaling features and unknown signaling features are both studied. For the former scenario, we propose an optimal spectrum sensing and power classification algorithm, based on coherent classification, to achieve accurate sensing performance by fully exploiting the inherent information of the signaling features. Optimal sensing threshold and decision regions are derived for detecting and classifying the transmission power of the MBS. For the scenario without signaling features, a generic spectrum sensing and power classification algorithm is proposed based on noncoherent classification with low implementation complexity. A new performance metric, i.e., classification probability, is introduced to comprehensively evaluate the classification capability of the proposed algorithms. Finally, extensive simulations are provided to verify the proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]