What is Spectrum Sensing

The radio spectrum is witnessing a major paradigm shift from fixed spectrum assignment policy to the dynamic spectrum access, which will completely change the way radio spectrum is managed. This step is required to greatly reduce the load on limited spectrum resources, which is being enforced by the exponential growth of wireless services. This is only feasible due to the capabilities of the cognitive radio, which will provide a new paradigm in wireless communication by exploiting the existing unused spectrum bands opportunistically. The chapter provides insight into recent developments in the area of cognitive radio networks with the main focus on review of the spectrum management, which consists of four main challenges: sensing of selected spectrum band, decision about sensed spectrum, sharing of spectrum among many users, and spectrum handoff. Further, sharing of target channel after a channel handoff is analyzed using game theory to get a different perspective on the existing medium access techniques.