This EARS (Enhancing Access to the Radio Spectrum) program was founded in response to the 2010 Presidential Memorandum on Unleashing the Wireless Broadband Revolution mandated by Congress as part of the National Broadband Plan. It was referenced in 2010 State of the Union and later on the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (More than 1/3 of the bill deals with radio spectrum), the PCAST 2012 Report [President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology] (which calls for vastly increased use of spectrum sharing) and the 2013 Presidential memo (Expanding America's Leadership in Wireless Innovation). The aim of this program is to identify bold new concepts with the potential to contribute to significant improvements in the efficiency of radio spectrum utilization, protection of passive sensing services, and in the ability for traditionally underserved Americans to benefit from current and future wireless-enabled goods and services. The impact is large on the economics of the Nation as seen on the last FCC bidding of 65MHz of the spectrum for over $45 billion early in 2015. It will enable access to science, engineering, industry, civilian and military users of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum.
Active wireless systems (which transmit and receive RF signals) such as cellular wireless communications have generated numerous advancements in our society and tremendous impacts on the national economy. Passive wireless systems (which only receive usually very faint signals) such as radio astronomy and earth exploration remote sensing have provided economically and scientifically important observations of Earth's environment, our solar system and the cosmos (e.g., weather forecasting, observation of solar flares which could affect infrastructure and lives on Earth). Both types of systems play crucial roles for the growth of humanity, thus their advancements need to be accommodated. However, their spectrum requirements are growing and conflicting to a large degree, and radio frequency interference (RFI) from active systems to passive systems is an increasing concern. This calls for a new paradigm of spectrum access and sharing that can cope with the future's needs. This project proposes such a paradigm between cellular wireless communications (CWC) and radio astronomy systems (RAS).
The project develops a novel time and frequency division spectrum access between CWC and RAS, which not only resolves the spectrum requirement conflict but also enhances spectrum access opportunities for both systems. Instead of relying on the geographical isolation of RAS telescopes to avoid RFI, the project introduces a geographical coexistence paradigm between CWC and RAS through the use of a large number of distributed auxiliary radio telescopes (DARTs). The very large scale DARTs will suppress the RFI issue and potentially enable a quantum leap in RAS's capabilities. In addition, the project develops novel adaptive circuitry and signal processing algorithms to handle the RFI issue efficiently. In brief, this project develops an interdisciplinary and mutually-beneficial technical solution and framework for spectrum access of CWC and RAS through coordination between them. CWC could gain more spectrum access opportunities which will enable more wireless services/applications and new business opportunities, thus expanding and enriching the national economy. RAS will secure more spectrum access opportunities and enhanced astronomical observation capabilities, thus accelerating its contributions to the fundamental science, knowledge of the universe, and protection of lives on Earth through space environmental information.
