SII Planning: WHISPERS: Wireless Hardware Innovations and Signal Processing for Enhanced Radio-astronomy and Scientific Spectrum Sharing

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This award is a planning grant for the Spectrum Innovation Initiative: National Center for Wireless Spectrum Research (SII-Center). The focus of a spectrum research SII-Center goes beyond 5G, IoT, and other existing or forthcoming systems and technologies to chart out a trajectory to ensure United States leadership in future wireless technologies, systems, and applications in science and engineering through the efficient use and sharing of the radio spectrum. The extraordinary growth of wireless communication, navigation, and radar systems has resulted in a convergence of scientific, commercial, and defense interests competing for access to RF and millimeter wave spectrum. There is mounting pressure on regulators and stakeholders to find mutually beneficial ways to share this spectrum, including bands where scientists have so far had unfettered access. A partnership comprising such complexity and scale is a grand challenge. The stakes are high and the opportunities unprecedented and potentially transformative. The objective of this project is to lay out a strategic framework and coalesce a comprehensive center-scale team that will engage and harness the forces competing for access to this precious resource. This project’s vision is to catalyze a vibrant community of world-class scientists and engineers in academia, industry, government agencies, and regulatory authorities, to create a hub for sustained research, technologies, and innovation.This project is aimed at the development of a comprehensive plan for a national center which would help maintain and extend US leadership in future wireless technologies, systems, and applications in science and engineering through the efficient use and sharing of radio spectrum from sub-6 GHz to well beyond 100 GHz. The project team is led by the University of Virginia (UVA), with partners at Northwestern University (NU), the National Radio-Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) Central Development Lab (CDL), and Virginia Diodes, Inc. (VDI). They propose to employ machine learning techniques, develop nonlinear receiving metrology tools, as well as approaches to spectrum management designed to protect science applications in poor signal-to-noise and signal-to-interference environments. Planning activities include research topics such as hardware development and design, as well as partnerships for broadening participation. This award will include education and workforce development, such as the development of a spectrum engineering certificate, curriculum, citizen science projects, and broadening participation efforts in spectrum through partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving institutions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.