Quantitative spectrum occupancy evaluation in China: based on a large scale concurrent spectrum measurement

Abstract

Due to the usable frequency becomes more and more crowed, dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is a new hope to solve this problem. However, DSA in China requires a quantitative analysis of the current spectrum utilization in frequency, temporal and spatial domains. In order to free the precious spectrum, spectrum regulation organizations must have a clear, detailed, up-to-date understanding of where, how and by whom spectrum is currently being used—such data is essential to sound policy decisions in the context of cognitive radio (CR). In this paper, a concurrent spectrum occupancy measurement in south China was conducted to evaluate the practical spectrum occupancy with a digital wideband receiver covering from 20 MHz to 3 GHz. We also propose systemic spectrum measurement methodology, matrix format data storage, duty cycle (DC) evaluation metric and data mining process which can be a guideline for other researchers when they conduct the similar experiments. Quantitative analysis and characterization of the 4 different measurement locations are evaluated to promote the popularization of CR application in China. And a uniform Beta distribution channel occupancy model is also validated using real-scene measurement data. The experimental results demonstrate that there is a significant scope for license-exemption use of the released spectrum using CR technology.