Spectrum avaílability assessment tool for TV white space

The growth of wireless communication relies on the availability of radio frequency for new services. More efficient spectrum allocations are required to serve the increasing data per user. The major regulatory bodies are formulating new spectrum management techniques to forge the growing spectrum scarcity. Exclusive use of spectrum is proved to be inefficient in many spectrum occupancy measurement campaigns. As a result, spectrum sharing methods are being considered. TV broadcasting is not using the allocated frequency in some geographic areas, creating coverage holes known as TV white spaces. Both the industry and the regulators are investigating the capability of TVWS, as a potential source of spectrum for emerging wireless services. The FCC, in the US, has already released the requirements for opportunistic access to the TV whites paces. In a similar fashion, ECC, the pan-European regulator is finalizing the work on the technical and operational requirements for the possible use of cognitive radio in this spectrum. In this thesis work, an integrated web-based spectrum availability assessment tool is developed for Finland. The tool is a front-end visualization of a time intensive computational process to answer key technical questions related to TVWS - what secondary data rate can be supported in the available white space spectrum? The assessment involves estimation of the available TVWS and its capacity for cellular-type secondary systems. The relative effects of the secondary system parameters on the TV system are compared using appropriate signal to noise and interference ratio plots. The tool uses dynamic web technologies for a seamless and user-friendly visualization of the assessment

Cognitive radio for TVWS usage

Spectrum scarcity is an emerging issue in wireless communication systems due to the increasing demand of broadband services like mobile communications, wireless internet access, IoT applications, among others. The migration of analog TV to digital systems (a.k.a. digital TV switchover) has led to the release of a significant spectrum share that can be used to support said additional services. Likewise, TV white spaces emerge as spectral opportunities that can also be explored. Hence, cognitive radio (CR) presents itself as a feasible approach to efficiently use resources and exploit gaps within the spectrum. The goal of this paper is to unveil the state of the art revolving around the usage of TV white spaces, including some of the most important methods developed to exploit such spaces, upcoming opportunities, challenges for future research projects, and suggestions to improve current models

Path Loss Predictions in the VHF and UHF Bands Within Urban Environments: Experimental Investigation of Empirical, Heuristics and Geospatial Models

(c) 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.[EN] Deep knowledge of how radio waves behave in a practical wireless channel is required for effective planning and deployment of radio access networks in urban environments. Empirical propagation models are popular for their simplicity, but they are prone to introduce high prediction errors. Different heuristic methods and geospatial approaches have been developed to further reduce path loss prediction error. However, the efficacy of these new techniques in built-up areas should be experimentally verified. In this paper, the efficiencies of empirical, heuristic, and geospatial methods for signal fading predictions in the very high frequency (VHF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) bands in typical urban environments are evaluated and analyzed. Electromagnetic field strength measurements are performed at different test locations within four selected cities in Nigeria. The data collected are used to develop path loss models based on artificial neural network (ANN), adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), and Kriging techniques. The prediction results of the developed models are compared with those of selected empirical models and field measured data. Apart from Egli and ECC-33, the root mean squared error (RMSE) produced by all other models under investigation are considered acceptable. Specifically, the ANN and ANFIS models yielded the lowest prediction errors. However, the empirical models have the lowest standard deviation errors across all the bands. The findings of this study will help radio network engineers to achieve efficient radio coverage estimation; determine the optimal base station location; make a proper frequency allocation; select the most suitable antenna; and perform interference feasibility studies.This work was supported jointly by the funding received from IoT-Enabled Smart and Connected Communities (SmartCU) Research Cluster and the Center for Research, Innovation and Discovery (CUCRID) of Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria.Faruk, N.; Popoola, SI.; Surajudeen-Bakinde, NT.; Oloyede, AA.; Abdulkarim, A.; Olawoyin, LA.; Ali, M.... (2019). Path Loss Predictions in the VHF and UHF Bands Within Urban Environments: Experimental Investigation of Empirical, Heuristics and Geospatial Models. IEEE Access. 7:77293-77307. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2921411S7729377307

White Space Network Management: Spectrum Quanti cation, Spectrum Allocation and Network Design

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Computer Science)The unused spectrum in the television broadcasting frequency bands (so-called TV white spaces) can alleviate the spectrum crunch, and have potential to provide broadband connection to rural areas of countries in the developing world. Current research on TV white spaces focuses on how to detect them accurately, and how they can be shared or allocated to secondary devices. Therefore, the focus of this research is three-fold: to investigate a novel distributed framework, which does not use propagation models in detecting TV white spaces, and suitable for use in countries of the developing world; to investigate a suitable spectrum sharing mechanism for short-time leasing of the TV white spaces to secondary devices; and extend the research to investigate the design of a TV white space-ware network in TV white space frequencies

TV White Spaces: A Pragmatic Approach

190 pages The editors and publisher have taken due care in preparation of this book, but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information contained herein. Links to websites imply neither responsibility for, nor approval of, the information contained in those other web sites on the part of ICTP. No intellectual property rights are transferred to ICTP via this book, and the authors/readers will be free to use the given material for educational purposes.  e ICTP will not transfer rights to other organizations, nor will it be used for any commercial purposes. ICTP is not to endorse or sponsor any particular commercial product, service or activity mentioned in this book. This book is released under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives ¦.þ International license. For more details regarding your rights to use and redistribute this work, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Understanding the Challenges of TV White Space Databases for Mobile Usage

Transition to the Digital Television (DTV) has freed up large spectrum bands, known as a digital dividend. These frequencies are now available for opportunistic use and referred to as Television White Space (TVWS). The usage of the TVWS is regulated by licensing, and there are primary users, mostly TV broadcasters, that have bought the license to use certain channels, and secondary users, who can use channels that primary users are not currently utilizing. The coexistence can be facilitated either by spectrum sensing or White Space Databases (WSDBs) and in this thesis, we are concentrating on the latter. Technically, WSDB is a geolocational database that stores location and other relevant transmitter characteristics of primary users, such as antenna height and transmission power. WSDB calculates safety zone of the primary user by applying radio wave propagation model to the stored information. The secondary user sends a request to WSDB containing its location and receives a list of available channels. The main problem we are going to concentrate on is specific challenges that mobile devices face in using WSDBs. Current regulations demand that after moving each 100 meters, the mobile device has to query WSDB, consequently increasing device's energy consumption and network load. Fast moving devices confront the even more severe problem: there is always some delay in communications with WSDB, and it is possible that while waiting for the response the device moves another 100 meters. In that case, instead of using the reply the device has to query the WSDB again. For fast moving devices (e.g. contained inside vehicles) the vicious loop can continue indefinitely long, resulting in an inability to use TVWS at all. A. Majid has proposed predictive optimization algorithm called Nuna to deal with the problem. Our approach is different, we investigate spatiotemporal variations of the spectrum and basing on over than six months of observations we suggest the spectrum caching technique. According to our data, there are minimal temporal variations in TVWS spectrum, and that makes caching very appealing. We also sketch technical details for a possible spectrum caching solution

Coexistence of DTT and Mobile Broadband: A Survey and Guidelines for Field Measurements

This article provides a survey and a general methodology for coexistence studies between digital terrestrial television (DTT) and mobile broadband (MBB) systems in the ultra high frequency (UHF) broadcasting band. The methodology includes characterization of relevant field measurement scenarios and gives a step-by-step guideline on how to obtain reliable field measurement results to be used in conjunction with link budget analyses, laboratory measurements, and simulations. A survey of potential European coexistence scenarios and regulatory status is given to determine feasible future use scenarios for the UHF television (TV) broadcasting band. The DTT reception system behavior and performance are also described as they greatly affect the amount of spectrum potentially available for MBB use and determine the relevant coexistence field measurement scenarios. Simulation methods used in determining broadcast protection criteria and in coexistence studies are briefly described to demonstrate how the information obtained from field measurements can be used to improve their accuracy. The presented field measurement guidelines can be applied to any DTT-MBB coexistence scenarios and to a wide range of spectrum sharing and cognitive radio system coexistence measurements.</p

D5.2 - Evaluation of Selected Measurement-based Techniques

Deliverable D5.2 del projecte FARAMIRPreprin