  The TV set feedback feature standardized in the next generation TV system,
ATSC 3.0, would enable opportunistic access of active TV channels in future
Cognitive Radio Networks. This new dynamic spectrum access approach is named as
black-space access, as it is complementary of current TV white space, which
stands for inactive TV channels. TV black-space access can significantly
increase the available spectrum of Cognitive Radio Networks in populated urban
markets, where spectrum shortage is most severe while TV whitespace is very
limited. However, to enable TV black-space access, secondary user has to
evacuate a TV channel in a timely manner when TV user comes in. Such strict
real-time constraint is an unique challenge of spectrum management
infrastructure of Cognitive Radio Networks. In this paper, the real-time
performance of spectrum management with regard to the degree of centralization
of infrastructure is modeled and tested. Based on collected empirical network
latency and database response time, we analyze the average evacuation time
under four structures of spectrum management infrastructure: fully
distribution, city-wide centralization, national-wide centralization, and
semi-national centralization. The results show that national wide
centralization may not meet the real-time requirement, while semi-national
centralization that use multiple co-located independent spectrum manager can
achieve real-time performance while keep most of the operational advantage of
fully centralized structure.
