EARS: Spectrum Efficiency Analysis using Multisite Spectrum Observatory Network

在商业和政府用户领域内，对增加无线宽带应用的射频频谱接入的需求仍然存在。由于可用的射频频谱已经完全分配，唯一可用的选择是：a)提高当前频谱使用的效率；b)将频谱重新用于更高价值的用途；或c)建立频谱共享。虽然FCC拥有授权、许可频谱用户的数据库，但这些选项的最终成功取决于对时间、频率和空间的实际射频频谱利用的了解。虽然已经对射频使用情况进行了快照调查，并在单一地点对射频使用情况进行了长期观察，但还没有充分探讨纳入空间维度以提高这些估计的准确性和模拟中等尺度地理变化的影响。鉴于需要获得足够高保真的射频环境的时间和空间变化的映射和模型以估计、表征和模拟频谱利用，由此产生的研究目标是：1)创建足够低的成本和可扩展的方法来生成和访问所需的高质量的射频数据集；2)提供新的方法来分析、建模和可视化所产生的大型多维信息库；以及3)建立频谱活动模型以测试候选频段中频谱共享的可行性，以便促进频谱重新定位和共享方面的决策和创新。

The need for increased RF spectrum access for wireless broadband applications continues within the commercial and government user domains. Since the usable RF spectrum is fully allocated, the only options available are to: a) increase the efficiency of current spectrum uses; b) re-purpose spectrum to higher value uses; or c) institute spectrum sharing. While the FCC has a database of authorized, licensed spectrum users, the ultimate success of any of these options depends on knowledge of actual RF spectrum utilization in time, frequency, and space. While snap-shot surveys of RF utilization have been performed, and long-term observations of RF use have been made at single locations, the impact of incorporating the spatial dimension to both improve the accuracy of these estimates and model medium-scale geographic variations has not been fully explored. Given the need to obtain mappings and models of the temporal and spatial variations of the RF environment with sufficiently high fidelity to estimate, characterize, and model spectrum utilization, the resulting research objectives are: 1) create a sufficiently low-cost and scalable approach to generating and accessing the necessary high quality RF dataset; 2) provide new methods for analyzing, modeling, and visualizing the resulting large, multi-dimensional information base; and 3) model spectrum activity to test the feasibility of spectrum sharing in candidate bands in order to facilitate decision making and innovation in spectrum repurposing and sharing.