Model-Based Spectrum Management Part 1: Modeling and Computation Manual

This paper is being distributed as a request for comments. It is our intent to collect comments and then to update this manual by October 2011. Please send comments to John Stine (using the Employee Directory). Responding by 15 August 2011 should ensure their consideration in the next version. It is our intent that the next version will serve as a foundational document for a subsequent standardization of spectrum consumption modeling. Radio frequency (RF) spectrum is a finite resource that is essential to many enterprises to include those of governments, militaries, businesses, and citizens. The broad utility of RF spectrum guarantees that demand for access will not wane and is likely to increase continuously. Obtaining greater utility from spectrum is universally beneficial. However, current trends to achieve greater utility have focused on prioritizing uses to those argued to be most beneficial or most effective, getting the most out of a particular use of spectrum, as opposed to developing the means to use spectrum most efficiently, i.e. use the least amount of spectrum for a particular task. Currently, there is a concerted effort to convert over 14% of the most useful spectrum, spectrum less than 3.5 GHz, to enable greater commercial broadband access. An alternative means to obtain more utility from spectrum to that of converting spectrum between uses is to more agilely manage spectrum and to build systems that can respond to that agile management so that uses can more effectively share spectrum. This approach can also enable greater broadband access but without compromising the various government operational, security, and public safety functions that currently occupy much of the spectrum targeted for conversion. Further, this type of technology would also mitigate many of the challenges confronted by the large users of spectrum such as the defense and intelligence communities. This manual describes a new spectrum management approach based on spectrum consumption modeling that can enable both the agile management envisioned and the systems that can respond to that agile management. The concept is to define an approach to model spectrum consumption and then to use these models to compute opportunities to reuse spectrum, to communicate spectrum consumption among systems and to convey spectrum authorizations and policy to RF systems. Models capture the aspects of spectrum consumption that are human judgment, the knowledge not present in mere datasets of system characteristics. The vision is that a well standardized approach to modeling spectrum consumption can be used as a loose coupler among the systems that manage and use spectrum. This type of loose coupler would encourage innovation in spectrum management and innovation in RF systems to dynamically access spectrum which combined could enable the agile management and use that is sought. Spectrum consumption modeling attempts to capture spectral, spatial, and temporal consumption of spectrum of any specific transmitter, receiver, system, or collection of systems. The details in the models of the spectral, spatial and temporal consumption provide an immediate opportunity for better management by enabling the identification of reuse opportunities. An effective spectrum consumption modeling approach achieves three objectives: Provides constructs for capturing the many facets of spectrum use within models. Provides well defined tractable and efficient methods for computing compatibility of modeled uses. Provides a means to use the models to convey both the consumption and the availability of spectrum. This manual defines a modeling approach that can achieve these three objectives. It defines a set of 12 constructs, describes how they are used to capture spectrum consumption, and describes how compatibility among models is computed. It describes how models are combined to convey system and enterprise use of spectrum, how models are used to convey spectrum availability, and how models may be used to convey policy to dynamic spectrum access systems.