COGNITIVE RADIO AND THE EXPLOITATION OF TV WHITE SPACES

Joseph W. Mwangoka, Ph. D. josephwam@gmail.com 13-Aug-13

Outline
Motivation for Spectrum Management Cognitive Radio TV White Space Technologies Standardization of the TV White Spaces Status of TV White Spaces in Africa Challenges and the Way Forward Conclusion

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Motivation for Spectrum Management

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Scarce Wireless Spectrum

Fixed Allocation Fixed Standards Fixed Protocol Stack Inefficient Expensive Limit Innovation Dynamic Allocation Multi devices, standards, modes X-Layer Design

 but a closer look reveals...

5

(Credit: DARPA XG)

Power

Time

Spectrum in Use

(Credit: ACSP Cornell)

Frequency White Spaces

Spectrum Opportunities in Space, Time, & Frequency

Cognitive Radio

Definition Cognition cycle Requirements & properties Application areas

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Cognitive Radio (1/4)

The term Cognitive Radio, was first introduced by Joseph Mitola in an article published in 1999 Definition of Cognitive Radio System (as published in Report ITU-R SM.2152):
Cognitive radio system (CRS) is a radio system employing technology that allows the system to obtain knowledge of its operational and geographical environment, established policies and its internal state; to dynamically and autonomously adjust its operational parameters and protocols according to its obtained knowledge in order to achieve predefined objectives; and to learn from the results obtained.

Cognitive Radio (2/4)

Obtaining knowledge of the operational radio and geographical environment to detect the spectrum white space and also to exit as soon as possible when primary user resume its communication. Decision and adjustment i.e. selecting best suited frequency bands and adjust its operating parameter dynamically according to obtained knowledge. Learn from the past actions to further improve its performance.

Learning Radio Environment & Sharing

Radio Environment

Internal State

Cognitive Radio System

Cognitive Radio (3/4)

Requirements:

co-exists with legacy wireless systems uses their spectrum resources does not interfere with them

Properties:
RF technology that "listens" to huge swaths of spectrum Knowledge of primary users spectrum usage as a function of location and time Rules of sharing the available resources (time, frequency, space) Embedded intelligence to determine optimal transmission (bandwidth, latency, QoS) based on primary users behavior

Cognitive Radio (4/4)

Licensed network Cellular, LTE-A Band Improved spectrum efficiency Improved capacity Improved interference management Secondary markets Public safety band On demand spectrum access Improved QoS Co-ordination 3rd party access in licensed networks TV White Spaces (400-800 MHz) License-exempt access Licensed access Need to protect incumbent users

Unlicensed network ISM, UNII, Ad-hoc Automatic frequency coordination Interoperability Co-existence
ISM: Industrial, Scientific & Medical UNII: Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure

TV White Spaces Technologies

Definition Sensing Co-operative sensing Geo-location database Application Areas

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TV White Spaces

Due to need to manage interference between DTV transmitters, the typical network plan creates large pockets of unused spectrum which is interleave in both frequency and space --- i.e. the TV White Spaces!
TV Spectrum (Sweet spot)

470 MHz White Spaces Occupied

790 MHz

862 MHz

DTV Systems (in Europe) Multi-frequency, High tower, high power

Digital dividend Cleared for licensed Cellular use, i.e. LTE/LTE-A systems
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Autonomous sensing (1/2)

Users

Objectives

Primary User (PU) Secondary User (SU) Cognitive Radio(CR)

CR-1

CR users should not cause harmful interference to PUs by either switching to an available band or limiting its interference with PUs at an acceptable level

Primary PU Rx Network

PU Rx

CR users should efficiently identify and exploit the CR-3 spectrum holes for required throughput and quality-ofservice (QoS) CR

Network

CR-2

Autonomous Sensing (2/2)

Problems of Sensing
Multipath

fading Shadowing The receiver uncertainty problem

Receiver Uncertainty

CR-1
Interference

CR-3

Primary Network

PU Rx PU Rx
Multipath & Shadow Fading

CR Network

CR-2

Co-operative Sensing (1/3)

Why cooperation matters?

enhance

the sensing performance by using the spatial diversity in the observations of spatially located CR users
Sensitivity level dBm Loss due to Path Loss Cooperation threshold Cooperation gain Loss due to Multipath Fading & Shadowing PU Transmit Power

No cooperation threshold

Noise floor

Co-operative Sensing (2/3)

Cooperation Gain
performance

improvement due to spatial diversity

Cooperation Overhead
any

extra sensing time, delay, energy, and operations devoted to cooperative sensing compared to the individual (non-cooperative) spectrum sensing case any performance degradation in correlated shadowing or the vulnerability to security attacks

Co-operative Sensing(3/3)
Cooperative methods

Elements of cooperation

Cooperation methods
Centralized Distributed Relay-assisted
Control Channel and Reporting Hypothesis Testing

Sensing Techniques Cooperation Models

Cooperative Sensing

Knowledge Base

Data Fusion

User Selection

Tradeoff between maximizing cooperation gain and minimize cooperation overhead

Geo-location Database

The function of the database is to take as inputs an appropriately amended version of the DTT (Digital Television Transmitters) coverage plan, the PMSE (Programme Making and Special Events) usage, any other licensed usage and parameters provided by the White Space Devices (WSD) and return to the WSD a list of information enabling it to access the spectrum.
OFCOM: Implementing geo-location database, Nov 2010

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Geo-location Database
Regulators list of Databases DTT Coverage Databases PMSE Usage Databases

2 3 Geo-location Database (3rd Party)

5 Master Device 6

Slave Device

Adopted from OFCOM: Implementing geo-location database, Nov 2010

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COGEU Geo-location Database

http://www.ict-cogeu.eu/demos.html

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Potential Application Areas

The limit is imagination

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Application Areas

Rural broadband areas Smart utility Enterprise, campus & municipal Home wireless Public safety Cellular networks (LTE-A) .
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Source: Chin-Seam Sum, et al, Cognitive communication in TV white spaces: An overview of regulations, standards, and technology, IEEE Com Mag, Vol 51, No. 7, pp 13 145, July 2013

Standardization for the TVWS

To bridge between research and the market To bring harmonization and interoperability between technologies and devices To achieve economies of scale Important groups:
IEEE ETSI IETF SIG Regulators

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IEEE 802.11af White-Fi

WiFi extension to TV White Space Objective:

Define modifications to both the 802.11 physical layers (PHY) and the 802.11 Medium Access Control Layer (MAC), to meet the legal requirements for channel access and coexistence in the TV White Space. Use the OFDM PHYs with 5-, 10- and 20-MHz channel widths to specify the basis for a system that the regulators can approve for operation in the TV white spaces bands.

Standards Board approval is planned for June 2014.

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IEEE 802.22 WRAN: Long range WiFi

Enabling Rural Broadband Wireless Access Using Cognitive Radio Technology in TV Whitespaces Specification finished and published.
IEEE 802.22-2011(TM) Standard for Cognitive Wireless Regional Area Networks (RAN) for Operation in TV Bands was Published as an Official IEEE Standard on July 1st 2011. Long range, cell radius 17-33 km (100km). PHY-Optimized for long channel response times and highly frequency selective fading. Sensing and geo-location.

More Info: IEEE 802.22-10/0073r03

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IEEE 802.19

Task Group 1: Wireless Coexistence in the TV White Space Scope: The standard specifies radio technology independent methods for coexistence among dissimilar or independently operated TV Band Device (TVBD) networks and dissimilar TV Band Devices. Purpose: The purpose of the standard is to enable the family of IEEE 802 Wireless Standards to most effectively use TV White Space by providing standard coexistence methods among dissimilar or independently operated TVBD networks and dissimilar TVBDs. This standard addresses coexistence for IEEE 802 networks and devices and will also be useful for non IEEE 802 networks and TVBDs. Final approval is due in autumn 2014.

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IEEE DySPAN SC

Radio Interface for White Space Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) Radio Systems Supporting Fixed and Mobile Operation. The scope of the DySPAN-SC includes the following:

DSA radio systems and networks with the focus on improved use of spectrum New techniques and methods of dynamic spectrum access including the management of radio transmission interference Coordination of wireless technologies including network management and information sharing amongst networks deploying different wireless technologies. 1900.1: Terminology Relating to Emerging Wireless Networks, System Functionality, and Spectrum Management Amendment: Addition of New Terms and Associated Definitions 1900.4: Architectural Building Blocks Enabling Network-Device Distributed Decision Making for Optimized Radio Resource Usage in Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks 1900.5: Policy-based control architectures and corresponding policy language requirements for managing the functionality and behavior of DSA networks. 1900.6: Spectrum Sensing Interfaces and Data Structures for DSA and other Advanced Radio Communication Systems 1900.7: Radio Interface for WS DSA Radio Systems Supporting Fixed and Mobile Operation
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Groups:

IETF PAWS

Protocol to Access White Space database The overall goals of this working group are to:
1. 2. 3. 4.

Standardize a mechanism for discovering a white space database. Standardize a method for communicating with a white space database. Standardize the data formats to be carried over the defined database communication method. Ensure that the discovery mechanism, database access method, and query/response formats have appropriate security levels in place.

By standardize is not meant that the working group will necessarily develop new
technologies Status:

Use cases and requirements document is more or less finalized, just some editorials before publishing. Currently working on the solution document, which is halfway through. Stable draft expected late summer, finalization of the work by the end of the year. The solution document is going to specify an application protocol which runs on top of HTTPS to access the database and perform all the actions required by the regulators, and get the channel list.
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ETSI

ETSI RRS ETSI BRAN

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ETSI RRS

ETSI Reconfigurable Radio Systems Technical Committee (RRS TC) ETSI RRS is formed by several WGs:

WG1: System aspects and develops proposals from a system aspects point of view for a common framework in RRS TC to ensure coherence among the different RRS TC WGs and to avoid overlapping and gaps between related activities. WG2: SDR technology with a particular interest in radio equipment architecture and proposes common reference architectures for SDR/CR radio related interfaces etc. WG3: Cognitive management and control. WG4: Public safety and collects and defines the related RRS requirements from relevant stakeholders in the public safety and defense domain
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ETSI BRAN

Harmonized standard EN 301 598

White Space Devices (WSD); Wireless Access Systems operating in the 470 MHz to 790 MHz frequency band; Harmonized EN covering the essential requirements of article 3.2 of the R&TTE Directive. EC mandate (TVWS just one issue) Limits of operation will be defined by a TVWS database, rather than by regulations:

The correct information exchanges between TVWS database, Master Device, and Slave Device That the device is behaving correctly according to the information given

Final version available since July 2013

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Weightless SIG

Proprietary & royalty free TVWS standard developed mainly for machine to machine (M2M) communication, but spreading also to broadband.

Main driver WAS a UK-based company Neul (now focus on Networking as a Service a.k.a. NaaS). A broadband downlink using single carrier modulation within a 6-8MHz TV channel. A narrowband uplink with 96 uplink channels per downlink channel to accommodate the lower terminal transmit power while maintaining a balanced link budget. Efficient MAC-level protocols that result in small headers per transmission and hence little overhead even when the payload is only a few bytes long Has been proposed to ETSI RRS, which is now working on the relevant use cases.
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Features:

ECC SE 43

CEPT has been defining technical and operational requirements for WSDs.

Technical reports, no direct regulatory power, but can be Slave used by administrations and basis for further regulatory work ECC Report 159 and complementary reports 185 & 186 Administrations, industry, operators, PMSE and broadcasters

Work was done in two phases with all stakeholders involved:

A concept of variable WSD-power depending on the TV reception conditions Studies on sensing were showing that a reliable detection of TV-transmissions would require very low sensing thresholds, which are unpractical at the moment. Therefore CEPT considers the geo-location as the most reliable technique for WSDs in 470-790 MHz band. SE43 work was completed in December 2012 WG FM will take over the activities on TVWSD (FM 53)

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So far

CR/TVWS standardization is spread to several organizations around the world. No dominant technology, i.e., market fragmentation by different applications which use different technologies. Other RATs like LTE & WiMAX can, have been, and will gain access to the TVWS. first adopters like the UK will shed light on the acceptability and business case.
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TV White Space in Africa

South Africa Kenya Malawi Tanzania TV White Space Forum 2013

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Google in South Africa

Source: http://google-africa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/announcing-new-tv-white-spaces-trial-in.html

CSIR (The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research ) Meraka has permission to operate the network through a group of partners and will perform spectrum field measurements to demonstrate noninterference. TENET (Tertiary Education & Research Network of South Africa)is managing the network and providing IP transit. e-Schools Network is providing support services to the partner schools. WAPA (Wireless Access Providers' Association ) has sourced local vendors to deploy the network. Comsol Wireless Solutions installed and are maintaining the network radio equipment. Google is sponsoring the trial and using its Spectrum Database to assign channels to the network with data provided by ICASA(Independent Communications Authority of South Africa)
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Microsoft in Kenya

Pilot project between Microsoft, the Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communications and Kenyan Internet Service Provider, Indigo Telecom Ltd.. Codenamed Mawingu. Objective: to deliver low-cost, high-speed wireless broadband and create new opportunities for commerce, education, healthcare, and delivery of government services across Kenya. Features: It is the first deployment of solar-powered based stations together with TV white spaces, a technology partially developed by Microsoft Research, to deliver high-speed internet access to areas currently lacking even basic electricity. Reported to deliver bandwidth speeds of up to 16Mbps to three rural communities which lack electricity: Male, Gakawa and Laikipia.

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TVWS in Malawi

Study conducted by the University of Malawi in coordination with the Malawi Regulator, MARCA. They use simple and cost effective spectrum analyzing technology from ICPT (International Centre for Theoretical Physics - Italy). Have already conducted Malawi rural white

space preliminary survey for 400 600 MHz. Measurements done in several rural areas to
assess the TV white spaces.
More information: Chomoka Mikeka, PhD:eCRG Research Report on the Preliminary Findings on White Space in Malawi, TV White Spaces Africa Forum, Dakar, May 2013 13-Aug-13

Microsoft in Tanzania

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TV White Space Africa Forum 2013

Agenda:

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/tvwsafrica2013/home

The road so far: the state of access in Africa Spectrum mapping, visualizing TV White Spaces TVWS business opportunities and user benefits The public interest perspective on dynamic spectrum Africas TV White Spaces regulatory roadmap Regulatory roadmap & model rules from abroad TV White Space trial outcomes Technology developments from TV White Spaces manufacturers Standards, databases & growing a common ecosystem 29 Presentations 13 Countries
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Challenges and the Way Forward:

Real Exploitation of TVWS and Mass Deployment of Cognitive Radio Networks. what are we supposed to do?

2008, 2010 FCC releases TV white space for secondary access

10+ years of study of Cognitive Radio 1999, Cognitive Radio was proposed by Joseph Mitola and Gerald Q. Maguire, JR
Source: Xiaojun Feng, et al , Database-Assisted Multi-AP Network on TV White Spaces: Architecture, Spectrum Allocation and AP Discovery, DySPAN 2011 presentation

Challenges and the Way Forward

Business Models: Business opportunities in the TV white spaces TV white space value chain (ecosystem) Technology: Efficient mechanism for TV white space identification Resource management and allocation Standardization and database interfaces development Regulatory: Consultation with the public and stakeholders on TV White Spaces Regulations on spectrum access licensed, license-exempt, unlicensed (ASA/LSA is another area with growing interest). Harmonization with other regions & Certification of cognitive radio devices Key: Provide certainty in investment through proper policy adaptations. The technology is there already! The business case is also feasible already!!!
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Conclusion

The TV White space has a huge potential to supply the needed spectrum for myriad of applications. Cognitive radio technology is a viable enabler for dynamic spectrum resource usage. Africa has a potential to be a Global Leader in harnessing the power inherent in the TV white spaces for social economic impact. There are challenges remaining, but the potentials deem them worthy overcoming.
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Questions and Answers

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AHSANTE SANA!!
The present should be a constant construction site for a better future.
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