NeTS: Small: From Sensing To Sharing Across Networks In White Space

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

The anticipated opening up of white space by the FCC for unlicensed use has created exciting new opportunities. It also presents unique challenges: (i) it requires accurate wide-band spectrum sensing technique to avoid interfering with primary users, and (ii) it needs dynamic spectrum sharing in heterogeneous setting both within networks and across networks. This project develops a holistic approach for spectrum sensing to address spatio-temporal variability and spectrum sharing among multiple secondary users and networks in white space. In particular, it first develops efficient and accurate spectrum sensing techniques that simultaneously exploit time- and frequency-domain features, sparsity in active transmitters, and temporal and spatial locality in the transmissions. Second, it studies the cost and benefits of sharing network state in a heterogeneous network where different nodes have different information views. Third, it studies spectrum sharing across networks (e.g., CSMA/MaxWeight, TDMA/CSMA co-located networks). It develops algorithms and studies performance and fairness both with implicit sharing (i.e., no state-exchange) and with explicit sharing of information across networks. Fourth, it proposes a ground-up design for white space that leverages random CDMA-like codes for spectrum sharing with an OFDM physical layer that leads to a new efficient architecture for sharing across users and networks in white space. The algorithms, techniques, and software resulting from this research will help enable effective communication in white space, create new wireless network technologies, and deepen our understanding of wireless networks. The research results will be incorporated into networking courses and widely disseminated through conference/journal publications and software distribution.