Efficient TV white space filter bank transceiver

Future devices operating in the TV white space (TVWS) spectrum will require to access different bands at different locations and times in order to avoid interference to incumbent users, requiring agility and sufficient spectral masks to satisfy regulators. Further, with very high-speed ADCs and DACs becoming reality, the purpose of this paper is to present a transceiver front-end capable of simultaneously up- and downconverting a significant portion of the UHF band. The proposed approach takes a two-stage filter-bank conversion for implementation on state-of-the-art FPGAs. We present three different parameterisations, which are compatible with the 40 TVWS channels between 470 and 790MHz in Europe, and compare them in terms of complexity and latency

Cognitive Radio Networks: Realistic or Not?

A large volume of research has been conducted in the cognitive radio (CR) area the last decade. However, the deployment of a commercial CR network is yet to emerge. A large portion of the existing literature does not build on real world scenarios, hence, neglecting various important interactions of the research with commercial telecommunication networks. For instance, a lot of attention has been paid to spectrum sensing as the front line functionality that needs to be completed in an efficient and accurate manner to enable an opportunistic CR network architecture. This is necessary to detect the existence of spectrum holes without which no other procedure can be fulfilled. However, simply sensing (cooperatively or not) the energy received from a primary transmitter cannot enable correct dynamic spectrum access. For example, the low strength of a primary transmitter's signal does not assure that there will be no interference to a nearby primary receiver. In addition, the presence of a primary transmitter's signal does not mean that CR network users cannot access the spectrum since there might not be any primary receiver in the vicinity. Despite the existing elegant and clever solutions to the DSA problem no robust, implementable scheme has emerged. In this paper, we challenge the basic premises of the proposed schemes. We further argue that addressing the technical challenges we face in deploying robust CR networks can only be achieved if we radically change the way we design their basic functionalities. In support of our argument, we present a set of real-world scenarios, inspired by realistic settings in commercial telecommunications networks, focusing on spectrum sensing as a basic and critical functionality in the deployment of CRs. We use these scenarios to show why existing DSA paradigms are not amenable to realistic deployment in complex wireless environments.Comment: Work in progres

A Comprehensive Survey on Networking over TV White Spaces

The 2008 Federal Communication Commission (FCC) ruling in the United States opened up new opportunities for unlicensed operation in the TV white space spectrum. Networking protocols over the TV white spaces promise to subdue the shortcomings of existing short-range multi-hop wireless architectures and protocols by offering more availability, wider bandwidth, and longer-range communication. The TV white space protocols are the enabling technologies for sensing and monitoring, Internet-of-Things (IoT), wireless broadband access, real-time, smart and connected community, and smart utility applications. In this paper, we perform a retrospective review of the protocols that have been built over the last decade and also the new challenges and the directions for future work. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive survey to present and compare existing networking protocols over the TV white spaces.Comment: 19 page

D6.2 - Prototype description and field trial results

Deliverable D6.2 del projecte FARAMIRPostprint (published version

Survey of Spectrum Sharing for Inter-Technology Coexistence

Increasing capacity demands in emerging wireless technologies are expected to be met by network densification and spectrum bands open to multiple technologies. These will, in turn, increase the level of interference and also result in more complex inter-technology interactions, which will need to be managed through spectrum sharing mechanisms. Consequently, novel spectrum sharing mechanisms should be designed to allow spectrum access for multiple technologies, while efficiently utilizing the spectrum resources overall. Importantly, it is not trivial to design such efficient mechanisms, not only due to technical aspects, but also due to regulatory and business model constraints. In this survey we address spectrum sharing mechanisms for wireless inter-technology coexistence by means of a technology circle that incorporates in a unified, system-level view the technical and non-technical aspects. We thus systematically explore the spectrum sharing design space consisting of parameters at different layers. Using this framework, we present a literature review on inter-technology coexistence with a focus on wireless technologies with equal spectrum access rights, i.e. (i) primary/primary, (ii) secondary/secondary, and (iii) technologies operating in a spectrum commons. Moreover, we reflect on our literature review to identify possible spectrum sharing design solutions and performance evaluation approaches useful for future coexistence cases. Finally, we discuss spectrum sharing design challenges and suggest future research directions

Real-Time Implementation of Spectrum Sensing Techniques in Cognitive Radios

Wireless communication requirements of higher sampling frequencies and bandwidth are ever increasing. For this purpose, exploitation of underutilized spectrum bands was one the challenging research targets. Cognitive Radio (CR) is a promising solution to overcome the “limited bandwidth” issue. Software defined radio (SDR) is the enabler of CR. The aim of the thesis is to adopt the vacant TV channels for secondary users. Spectrum sensing prototype has been proposed to detect TV white space (TVWS). The prototype has been developed using Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) and examined to sense TVWS in the real time world. The conducting analysis of obtained measurements showed the state of unoccupied spectrum bands in the UHF band ranges from 500 MHz to 698 MHz in the urban area ofWindsor, Ontario, Canada. Two different spectrum sensing techniques namely, the energy detector, and pilot-tone detector were employed to get the result with minimum computational complexity. Experiments show that the presence of incumbent users can be easily detected using the spectrum sensing techniques mentioned in the thesis. The experimental results have demonstrated the validity of the proposed prototyp