Is spectrum sharing in the radar bands commercially attractive?—a regulatory and business overview

Abstract

The need to meet users' expectations in the "mobile data avalanche" represents a significant challenge for mobile networks operators (MNOs). More spectrum is a natural way to meet these requirements in a cost and time-efficient way; but new, exclusively licensed, spectrum is increasingly hard to come by. Instead, vertical spectrum sharing has been discussed as a potential solution for finding additional spectrum for mobile communications. In this paper, we focus on vertical spectrum sharing in the radar bands for providing short-range wireless access, e.g. indoors and in "hotspots" that "offload" mobile traffic demand. We propose a methodology for dealing with the technical, regulatory and business aspects of deploying large-scale wireless networks. Moreover, we identify the following criteria for achieving business success: spectrum availability, availability of low-cost enduser devices, system scalability in terms of number of concurrently used devices and finally, the ability to guarantee a quality of service for the users.Our technical availability assessment has identified geo-location database support as necessary technical enabler and detect-and-avoid mechanism as a beneficial technical enabler for improving sharing conditions. Therefore, we propose a * Corresponding author: Dr. Ki Won Sung (sungkw@kth.se) Preprint submitted to Telecommunications PolicyMay 6, 2014sharing mechanism based on three components: a central spectrum manager with a geo-location database controlling the aggregate interference, a spectrum sensing mechanism and a fast feedback between the radars and the central spectrum manager. Moreover, Licensed Shared Access (LSA) was found to be the suitable regulatory framework to support the proposed sharing mechanism and regulatory policies in real-life implementation.Our business feasibility assessment concludes that there is enough spectrum available for indoor and hotspots communication in urban areas in the radar bands to make a large scale system commercially viable. Service quality can be guaranteed and there is a strong potential to construct low-cost devices. Uncertainties do, however, remain regarding the spectrum access cost.

Proactive Radar Protection System in Shared Spectrum via Forecasting Secondary User Power Levels

“…By considering the random nature of radio propagation, the radar protection of the proposed system can be expressed in terms of the probability of total interference which exceeds the tolerable radar interference level and the permissible probability of harmful interference at the radar, ϵ p , as in [17] and [34]:…”

“…The value of ϵ p varies depending on the operating frequency and the radar type [34]. Reference [17] considered ϵ p = 0.05 for a weather radar operating in 5.6 GHz.…”

“…The radar protection performance of our FIGURE 8: Averaged throughput per user connected to each AP for different radar protection systems vs ϵ p proposed system is improved by utilizing the upper limits of different PIs so that lower ϵ p value is always achieved for the same averaged throughput per user than in the system with averaged prediction and the real-time system. Our proposed scheme with upper limits prediction can be used between ϵ p = 0.0006 with 99.9% PI and ϵ p = 0.043 with 75% PI which does not exceed the recommended value, ϵ p = 0.05, for a weather radar operating in 5.6 GHz [34].…”

Secrecy rate optimization for dual‐functional radar‐communication system with energy receiver

“…Large amounts of available spectrum in radar bands and similarity between radar and communication systems make the coexistence possible. Thus, many researchers are inspired to make radar and communication systems work together and share the same frequency band 3‐7 …”

“…Thus, many researchers are inspired to make radar and communication systems work together and share the same frequency band. [3][4][5][6][7] Though the RCC system realizes the spectrum sharing, the coexistence needs to well manage the signals interference. [8][9][10] In order to achieve radar and communication spectrum sharing and avoid mutual interference, the design of dual-functional radar-communication (DFRC) system is a better way than RCC method mentioned above.…”