Collaborative Research: Pervasive Spectrum Sharing for Public Safety Communications

下一代公共安全通信（PSC）系统必须向受灾地区的公共安全人员和用户提供高容量无线服务，对基础设施的依赖很少。值得注意的是，现代PSC系统还没有赶上过去十年的无线革命，因为它们仍然依赖于过去的技术，无法提供高速无线接入。事实上，为了应对未来PSC系统中可预见的严格服务要求，需要进行重大创新，以提高频谱效率。这反过来又需要应对多学科挑战：1)制定激励机制，鼓励政府机构、提供商和用户共享宝贵的频谱资源；2)动态管理相互依存的频谱市场；3)有效地建模和操作可持续的通信协议，这些协议可以在很少的基础设施支持下运行。该项目汇集了无线通信和网络、博弈论、数学和公共安全管理方面的研究人员，通过引入一种新的框架，为灾害和紧急情况下的建模、设计、分析和操作大规模频谱共享提供必要的分析工具，来应对这些挑战，提高PSC的效率。这项研究的首要科学价值是启动了一个急需的飞跃，朝着一个更加开放、高度参与和普遍共享无线频谱的PSC。该项目提供了一系列频谱共享创新：1)新的经济方法和PSC机制，为政府机构、提供商和最终用户提供激励，有效补贴稀缺的无线电频谱，并促进新的公共安全和频谱分配政策；2)一个基本框架，紧密集成博弈论和拍卖理论的工具，使具有多跳能力的共存频谱共享市场能够动态运行；3)描述PSC无线信道、流量、拓扑、用户行为和移动性的新颖现实模型；4)通过新的PSC测试平台，与几个主要的行业合作伙伴和当地公共安全机构进行广泛的验证和密切合作，将理论结果有效地加速转化为实践。简而言之，该项目提供了新一代PSC系统和协议，可以加快对灾害的响应，挽救生命，降低经济成本。

Next-generation public safety communication (PSC) systems must deliver high-capacity wireless services to public safety personnel and users in disaster-affected areas, with little reliance on infrastructure. Remarkably, modern-day PSC systems have yet to catch up with the past decade's wireless revolution, as they still rely on technologies of yesteryears that fall short on delivering high-speed wireless access. Indeed, coping with the foreseen stringent service requirements in future PSC systems mandates major innovations that can increase spectral efficiency. This, in turn, requires tackling multidisciplinary challenges: 1) developing incentive mechanisms for government agencies, providers, and users to share their precious spectrum resources; 2) dynamically managing interdependent spectrum markets; and 3) efficiently modeling and operating sustainable communication protocols that can function with little infrastructure support. This project brings together researchers in wireless communications and networking, game theory, mathematics, and public safety administration to address these challenges and boost the efficiency of PSC by introducing a novel framework that provides the necessary analytical tools for modeling, designing, analyzing, and operating large-scale spectrum sharing in disaster and emergency situations. The overarching scientific merit of this research is to initiate the much-needed leap towards a more open, highly participatory, and pervasive sharing of the wireless spectrum for PSC. This project offers an array of spectrum sharing innovations: 1) new economic approaches and PSC mechanisms that provide incentives for government agencies, providers, and end-users, to effectively subsidize the scarce radio spectrum and facilitate novel public safety and spectrum allocation policies; 2) a foundational framework that tightly integrates tools from game theory and auction theory for enabling a dynamic operation of co-existing spectrum sharing markets with multi-hop capabilities; 3) novel realistic models for characterizing wireless channels, traffic, topology, user behavior, and mobility in PSC; and 4) effective and accelerated transition of theoretical results to practice via a new PSC testbed for extensive validation and close collaboration with several major industry partners and local public safety agencies. In a nutshell, the project provides a new generation of PSC systems and protocols that expedite the response to disasters, save lives, and reduce economic costs.