Review of Spectrum Occupancy Measurements in the Context of Cognitive Radio

Abstract

Presently, there is a progressive growth in the proportion of internet users as well as deployment of data intensive applications which has led to higher demand for bandwidth on the usable spectrum space for the unlicensed and licensed frequency bands. Spectrum is a scarce and limited resource, inefficiencies in the management of spectrum has resulted to a recent and unique communication standard for exploiting the current licensed spectrum in an opportunistic manner. Cognitive Radio (CR) has proved to be the solution to this seeming highly demanded spectrum. Several studies have been conducted on spectrum occupancy across the world in order to observe and determine the bands that have been underutilized so as to make room for the new technological emergences such as CR. This review shows that from previous works done, there is a research gap in the spectrum measurement work for TV band and specifically the VHF band in Nigeria.