Dear Saleen, I suppose you want to detect the presence of signals of interest by using spectrum sensing methods. In this case a variety of solutions are provided such as matched filters, energy detector, adaptive filters, eigenvalues and many other techniques. On each method several criterias are established to provide a proper threshold given a unique estimated noise variance value, please check this excelent book
Dear Saleen, as we know there are two phenomena in CR and CRN to be considered for reliable detection. One is possibility of miss-detection and the other is the probability of false-detection.Miss detection happens when the SNR is generally good but there is sudden spurts in noise and the SNR fails to ensure positive detection.To avoid this, the SNR must have some buffer with respect to the standard value. In the case of false detection, the SNR has to be set at a value higher than the average critical threshold.I hope my explanation help you somewhat.