On the effect of random sampling jitter on cyclostationarity based spectrum sensing algorithms for cognitive radio

Cognitive radio is an enabling technology, which is expected to lead to a more efficient utilization of the available spectral resources due to its flexibility and its ability to sense its spectral environment. Recently, spectrum sensing methods based on exploiting the cyclostationary characteristics of communication signals have been drawing considerable interest. Imperfections in the cognitive radio receiver that affect the cyclic statistics of a signal of interest may lead to a degradation in the performance of spectrum sensing algorithms based on cyclostationarity. One such typical source of imperfection is random timing jitter in the sampling process. In this work, we explore the effect of random sampling jitter on the second order cyclostationary statistics of wide sense cyclostationary signals. General analytical expressions are derived for the cyclic statistics of sampled signals in the presence of sampling jitter and specific results are provided for two cases of interest. Subsequently, the effect of the jitter on a spectrum sensing algorithm is investigated via simulations.