EARS: Joint Optimization of RF Design and Smartphone Sensing: From Adaptive Sniffing to WAZE-Inspired Spectrum Sharing

在过去的十年中，人们对商用无线频谱的需求急剧增长。预计在可预见的未来，移动的流量（特别是智能手机流量）的急剧增长将继续下去，迫切需要开发创新的频谱感测和共享技术。Waze是一个非常成功的基于GPS的移动的导航应用程序，它根据用户提交的旅行时间和路线细节提供实时交通信息。受Waze的启发，该项目围绕着下一代智能手机将能够通过内置的频谱嗅探器和来自移动的设备的共享使用信息的帮助进行实时频谱感知和通信环境共享的愿景。这项研究将使现有的认知无线电设计方法的使用感知频谱共享的范式转变。智能手机频谱嗅探的低成本集成宽带RF设计的创新实施，结合新颖的频谱共享技术，将对智能手机设计产生引人注目的变革性影响，并实现高效的频谱共享。教育活动将通过激励和吸引初中和高中学生参与工程来培养国家需求这一领域的熟练劳动力。基于这一愿景，该项目倡导为智能手机联合设计射频（RF）硬件和频谱感知，旨在实现使用感知频谱共享，并将智能手机硬件的动态范围和功耗要求降至最低。在这一共同主题下，该项目包括以下研究和教育重点。I）用于智能手机感测的低成本RF架构。Thrust I专注于用于频谱感知和数据传输的低成本、集成、宽带RF设计。频谱嗅探器利用共享的使用信息来检测1 GHz至18 GHz的RF信号，具有高动态范围和灵敏度，数字发射器实现了调制无关的数据传输，同时降低了手机功耗。在此基础上，本研究将分别探讨数据库辅助频谱接入和分布式频谱接入技术。II）Waze启发的数据库辅助频谱共享。沿着与Waze应用相同的路线，数据库用于从智能手机收集频谱使用信息，并响应于来自各个用户的请求发送实时位置特定使用信息和潜在空闲信道集合。然后，每个用户执行精细的感测，然后进行数据传输。III）Waze启发的使用感知分布式频谱共享。Thrust III致力于研究分布式频谱共享，其中使用信息仅在附近的智能手机用户之间共享。四）通过执行包括课程任务和K-12外展在内的各种活动，将研究纳入教育和外展。

The past decade has witnessed a skyrocketing demand for commercial wireless spectrum. These sharp increases in mobile traffic (particularly smartphone traffic) are projected to continue in the foreseeable future, creating an urgent need to develop innovative spectrum sensing and sharing technologies. The proposed research is inspired by Waze, a highly successful GPS-based mobile navigation application program that provides real-time traffic information, based on user-submitted travel times and route details. Inspired by Waze, this project is centered around the vision that future generation smartphones will be able to carry out real-time spectrum sensing and sharing of the communication environment, through built-in spectrum sniffers and the help of shared usage information from mobile devices. This research shall enable a paradigm shift from existing cognitive radio design approaches to usage aware spectrum sharing. Innovative implementation of a low-cost integrated broadband RF design for smartphone spectral sniffing, in combination with novel spectrum sharing techniques, will have a compelling and transformative impact in smartphone design and enable efficient spectrum sharing. The educational activities will develop skilled workforce in this area of national need by inspiring and engaging the middle and high school student population in engineering. Built on this vision, this project advocates joint design of radio frequency (RF) hardware and spectrum sensing for smartphones, aiming to enable usage-aware spectrum sharing with minimal dynamic range and power consumption requirements placed on the smartphone hardware. Under this common theme, this project consists of the following research and educational thrusts. I) Low-cost RF architecture for smartphone sensing. Thrust I focuses on low-cost, integrated, broadband RF design for spectrum sensing and data transmission. The spectral sniffer leverages shared usage information to detect RF signals from 1 GHz to 18 GHz with both high dynamic range and sensitivity, and the digital transmitter enables modulation-agnostic data transmission with low handset power consumption. Built on the low-overhead design of RF hardware in this thrust, database assisted spectrum access and distributed spectrum access are explored in Thrusts II and III, respectively. II) Waze-inspired database assisted spectrum sharing. Along the same line as in the Waze application, a database is used to gather spectrum usage information from smartphones, and sends both real-time location-specific usage information and the set of potentially vacant channels in response to the requests from individual users. Each user then carries out refined sensing, followed by data transmissions. III) Waze-inspired usage-aware distributed spectrum sharing. Thrust III is dedicated to study distributed spectrum sharing, where usage information is shared only among smartphone users in the vicinity. IV) Integrate research into education and outreach by performing a diverse set of activities that include curricular tasks and K-12 outreach.