Electromagnetic spectrum survey of the environment in a locality in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

The electromagnetic spectrum in the environment is becoming a scarce resource with the emergence of a high number of wireless communications services Cognitive radio (CR) is viewed as a possible solution to the spectrum bottleneck which work in a premise that at an any given time and spatial region there are frequency bands that has no signal occupancy. The CR technique utilizes a temporarily unoccupied licensed band by allowing secondary users to exploit opportunistically the underutilized spectrum licensed to primary users without any harmful interference. Before investigating the technical and political implications of CR, it is necessary to know to what extent the licensed bands are temporally unoccupied. In this paper a spectrum occupancy measurements is conducted to study the utilization of RF spectrum in an environment. The measurements are performed on UHF TV, GSM900 and GSM1800 frequency bands in an urban area in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The evaluation made is based on the power detection principle. From the measurements, the spectrum holes are identified. The obtained results show that the spectral usage is 7.37% for UHF TV band, 12.8% for GSM900 and 5.3% for GSM1800 band leading to the conclusion that a significant amount of spectrum is available for deployment of cognitive radio.