Spectrum Observatory Project
The narrowing of available spectrum has lead the FCC to open up portions of the spectrum for dynamic access. These portions would be available for detection and allocation based on the current state of the channel. The effort of much of the current research is how to determine the state of the channel. There are two basic approaches to this problem. One approach is performing energy sensing and carrier detection and the other approach is the use of a database which lists all primary users of the channel with their associated frequency bands. Both of these approaches have their associated problems which has lead to us to come up with a solution which combines the two methods.
The Spectrum Observatory combines the static database with a
distributed sensing system. It will maintain static FCC information
along with dynamic spectrum information. The challenge with be
coming up with a way to combine this information and come up with a spectrum
map. The spectrum map with be three dimensional: time, frequency,
probability of occupancy. The observatory will ultimately use these
maps to give recommendations to information requestors of what channels to
use at a particular time.