Explainable AI for Spectrum Sensing
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Magotra, Varun, Sirani M. Perera, Arjuna Madanayake, and Houbing Herbert Song. “Explainable AI for Spectrum Sensing.” 2025 34th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), August 2025, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCN65249.2025.11133914.
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Abstract
In conventional paradigms of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), models are trained as ’black boxes’ on task-specific datasets prior to deployment. This poses various challenges to the application of AI for spectral adaptation. First, we cannot ensure the reliability of the model, since we do not know how they correlate signal features with their recognition target. We need a method to explain the final stage of decision-making. To address the first challenge, we propose a zero-bias neural network where we replace the penultimate layer of a specific DNN or CNN model with an extended Cosine Similarity Matching layer, called the zero-bias dense layer. This adaptation has been proven not to affect the learning and inferential capabilities of AI models. In this research study, we used the zero-bias neural network (ZBNN) for spectral sensing on the RADIOML 2016.10A dataset, which consists of 11 different modulation types, consisting of both analog and digital signals having varying Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To compare the ZBNN accuracy, we used the CNN model having identical hyperparameters. The proposed ZBNN for spectral sensing has the potential to become the fundamental building block for explainable AI, especially in remote spectral sensing.