Methods and technologies for wideband spectrum sensing

The paper presents a review of the measurement methods and the technologies for wideband spectrum sensing. Wideband spectrum sensing is a relevant task in RF measurement instruments and telecommunications equipments. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the discussion of methods. They have been classified into five main approaches: (i) signal detection with known sub-band width; (ii) joint sub-band boundaries and level estimation; (iii) spectrum segmentation; (iv) compressed sensing; and (v) cooperative sensing. Methods following approaches (ii) and (iii) are the most suitable for the implementation in measuring instruments, since they allow separation of the signals, sharing the observed band. Therefore, greater attention has been paid to these approaches throughout the paper. A second part of the paper is dedicated to the analysis of main technologies enabling wideband spectrum sensing, dealing with the (i) RF frontend, (ii) A/D conversion, and (iii) waveform processing section of a potential instrument.