Wideband Distributed Spectrum Sharing with Multichannel Immediate Multiple Access

Abstract: This paper describes a radio architecture for distributed spectrum sharing of multiple channels among secondary users (SUs) in a wide band of frequencies and a localized area. A novel Multichannel Immediate Multiple Access (MIMA) physical layer is developed such that each SU can monitor all the channels simultaneously for incoming signals and achieve fast rendezvous within the multiple channels. The spectrum utilized by an SU pair can be changed dynamically based upon spectrum sensing at the transmitter and tracking synchronization and control messages at the receiver. Although information about the number of active SUs can be used to improve the spectrum sharing efficiency, the improvement is small relative to the cost of obtaining such information. Therefore, the architecture adopts Multichannel Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) for medium access control regardless of the number of active SUs. A prototype implementation of the architecture has been developed using an advanced software defined radio (SDR) platform. System tests demonstrate that the spectrum sharing efficiency of the prototype is close to an upper bound if the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is sufficiently high. Among other practical issues, imaged interference caused by hardware IQ imbalance limits system performance. In the prototype, the MIMA is based on an LTE waveform. Therefore, the spectrum sharing radio can be potentially applied to the 3.5 GHz radar band for Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS).