A Modern Evolvable Architecture for Spectrum Regulation

该项目将研究如何设计现代频谱共享系统。无线频谱现在被认为是一种关键的国家资源，必须进行适当的管理，以支持创新和经济增长。传统的无线规则由律师和工程师用法律英语编写，并由律师和工程师阅读/解释。无线监管领域的一场新兴革命是，核心规则将嵌入自动频谱接入系统(SASS)中，这些系统通过硬件、软件和交互协议的组合实施。此外，SASS将支持各种无线系统，从传统的联邦用户到传统的蜂窝运营商，再到新兴的创新无线系统。在这个项目中形成的想法将被传播给行业，并被带到课堂上，包括我们旨在培养创新技术领袖的新的工程硕士课程。该项目还将通过指导代表人数不足的群体的学生，扩大对技术劳动力的参与。在技术核心上，该项目将结合软件工程、数学无线理论以及对我们希望支持的策略权衡的理解，帮助创建如何创建可扩展和健壮的SAS的现代理论。关键的认识是，使系统可伸缩是关于以安全的方式健壮地接近我们想要的东西，同时支持灵活性。来自虚拟化、软件定义网络和云计算的想法将发挥重要作用。除了掌握我们支持SAS的无线未来的总体架构应该是什么，该项目还将获得见解并将其体现为易于使用的原型工具，联邦监管机构和频谱经理可以采用这些工具来探索和导航设计权衡。

This project will study how to engineer modern spectrum sharing systems. Wireless spectrum is now recognized as a key national resource that has to be managed appropriately to support innovation and economic growth. Traditional wireless rules were written by a combination of lawyers and engineers in legal English, and read/interpreted by lawyers and engineers. The emerging revolution in wireless regulation is that the core rules will be embedded in automated Spectrum Access Systems (SASs) that are implemented in a combination of hardware, software, and interaction protocols. Moreover, the SASs will support diverse wireless systems ranging from legacy federal users to traditional cellular carriers to emerging new innovative wireless systems. The ideas developed in this project will be disseminated to industry as well as brought into the classroom, including our new Masters of Engineering courses aimed at educating innovative technical leaders. The project will also broaden participation in the technical workforce by mentoring students from underrepresented groups. At its technical core, this project will help create a modern theory of how to make scalable and robust SASs by bringing together a combination of software engineering, mathematical wireless theory, as well as an understanding of the policy tradeoffs that we want to support. The key realization is that making scalable systems is about robustly approximating what we want in a safe manner while supporting flexibility. Ideas from virtualization, software-defined-networking, and cloud computing will play an important role. In addition to getting a handle on what the overall architecture should be of our SAS-enabled wireless future, the project will also take insights and embody them into easy-to-use prototype tools that can be adapted by federal regulators and spectrum managers to explore and navigate the design tradeoffs.