$10.5 million cooperative agreement funded by NSF will create research environment for dynamic spectrum sharing

A MITRE-led team of spectrum engineers, academics, and radio astronomy researchers from across the country will develop and conduct dynamic spectrum sharing experiments following a $10.5 million cooperative agreement funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Radio Dynamic Zones program.

Dynamic spectrum sharing allows multiple spectrum users in the area to operate within the same frequencies to enhance access without harmful interference. The technology can enable next-generation connectivity and spectrum resources for national security and critical infrastructure as new research is available.

In addition to MITRE, the spectrum sharing research team includes:

• Northeastern University
• University of Texas, Austin
• The University of Utah
• The University of Colorado at Boulder
• University of California, Berkeley
• The SETI Institute

“The NSF National Radio Dynamic Zones program will help overcome the radio spectrum shortage created by rapid growth of wireless communications and other uses—there is simply not enough spectrum to go around using current methods,” said John Chapin, special advisor for spectrum at NSF. “NSF is supporting this team to test innovative new ways to increase spectrum availability for diverse use cases, such as sharing spectrum between wireless communications networks and radio telescope facilities.”

Called “SPARKIE,” the team will initially create an experimental dynamic spectrum sharing environment at Hat Creek Radio Observatory in California to ensure continued radio telescope operations without harmful impacts from local spectrum users, including WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular devices. This experiment and future experiments involving spectrum research facilities will build and develop a toolkit for radio dynamic spectrum sharing zones.

“Dynamic spectrum sharing is a key part of the future of connectivity,” said Charles Clancy, chief technology officer and senior vice president, MITRE Labs, at MITRE. “We know that each new generation of cellular technology uses dramatically more spectrum than the last, so developing secure and reliable ways to allocate and share spectrum is essential. MITRE is proud to bring our expertise in systems engineering and electronic systems to building a national-scale testbed for spectrum coexistence research.”

“The Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern is excited to partner with MITRE to shape the future of wireless technology as spectrum scarcity drives the need for sharing between federal and industry partners,” said Tommaso Melodia, director of Northeastern University’s Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things. “Experiments in this program will provide ground truth data and contribute to the development of models and algorithms for spectrum sharing validated at scale to inform policy and the development of 6G standards.”

This work receives support from the NSF National Radio Dynamic Zones program (NSF Award #2431961). Visit nrdz.mitre.org/ for more information.

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