First IEEE International Conference on Communications in China: Wireless Networking and Applications (WNA)

Spectrum Occupancy Analysis Based on Radio Monitoring Network

Dezhang Chen1, Jingjing Yang2, Jida Wu1, Hao Tang1, Ming Huang2*
1

Radio Monitoring Center of Yunnan province, Kunming, Yunnan, China cdz9948@126.com

Wireless and innovation Lab, School of Information Science & Engineering, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan, China *huangming@ynu.edu.cn Recently, CR has attracted a great deal of attention [7-12]. The measurement of radio environment to understand the current spectrum usage of the different wireless services in terms of frequency, time, and space is an important step towards the dynamic spectrum management in the future. Several spectrum surveys, in different part of the world, have been conducted. The spectrum occupancy measurements are performed in Chicago a business of America [7]. The observed low spectrum occupancy indicates that a huge amount of prime spectrum is available for dynamic spectrum access. An occupancy measurement campaign is conducted in the frequency range between 806 MHz and 2750 MHz in urban Auckland, New Zealand [8] with the purpose of identifying the potential spectrum opportunities for CR. The analyses indicate that, on average, the actual spectral usage in this band is only about 6.2%. Point-to-point links and some mobile uplink channels are identified as the most probable candidates for future CR operations. A spectrum survey is conducted in the suburban of Mumbai, India [9] for the frequency span of 700-2700MHz. The measurement results of two weekdays campaign shows the spectrum occupancy is considerably low and a substantial amount of spectrum could be considered for dynamic spectrum use. A 24-hour spectrum usage pattern is studied in the frequency bands ranging from 80MHz-5850MHz in Singapore [10]. The results suggest that Singapore has a great potential for employing emerging CR technology to accommodate enormous demands for future wireless services. Spectrum monitoring surveys are conducted in Johor Bahru, Malaysia[11], and Chengdu, China [12]. The obtained results demonstrate significant amount of spectrum in TV band is available for deployment of cognitive radio systems. In this work, we conducted spectrum occupancy measurement campaign based on the radio monitoring network with 150 stations in Yunnan Province. The measurement results of six typical fixed stations that located in Kunming, Qujing and Zhaotong Cities of Yunnan Province are analyzed in detail. The goal of this campaign is to evaluate the spectrum occupancy in the frequency range of 20 to 3000 MHz. We report the occupancy statistics band by band. The frequency bands which could be considered for dynamic spectrum access in the future are discussed. II. MEASUREMENT SYSTEM A diagram of the spectrum monitoring network is shown in Fig. 1. The Radio Monitoring Control Center (Longitude: 102o 39 25 - East, Latitude: 24o 59 20- North) is located in

AbstractAs the demand for wireless communication system grows, the need for radio spectrum increases accordingly. In this context, cognitive radio has emerged as a breakthrough for effective utilization of radio spectrum. In order to realize dynamic spectrum management in the future, it is imperative to possess a thorough understanding about how wireless spectrum behaves over time, frequency, and space, etc. In this paper, we report the spectrum occupancy measurement campaign conducted in the frequency range of 20-3000MHz based on the radio monitoring network in Yunnan Province. Spectrum occupancy with space and time dependent characteristic at six typical fixed stations are obtained. The measurement results show relatively low spectrum occupancy with great potential for dynamic usage of spectrum. Besides, the ambient noise has a great influence on the measurement results, thus its calibration is a key issue in radio monitoring which is based on energy detection. Keywords-Spectrum Monitoring; Dynamic spectrum access; Energy detection

I.

INTRODUCTION

Radio spectrum is a finite resource for wireless communication. In order to share this resource the spectrum allocation policy which provides fixed allocation to license user has been adopted since a hundred years ago. Although this fixed spectrum allocation policy has been successful in avoiding the harmful interference that jeopardizes the quality of delivered service, the efficiency of the radio spectrum utilization is rather low[1]. Due to the explosive growth of wireless communications, the requirement for spectrum is expanding rapidly, and radio spectrum becomes increasingly scarce. Radio spectrum resources have become a bottleneck that restrains the development of future wireless communication systems [2, 3]. It is widely accepted that the fixed allocation scheme is inefficient for spectrum, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is keenly interested in new technologies which might mitigate this strain [4]. Cognitive radio (CR) which is also known as dynamic spectrum access, introduced by Mitola [5] has opened up an avenue for effective utilization of radio spectrum. CR is an intelligent radio system [6] that is capable of sensing its environment, and adapting its physical operating parameters such as transmit power, carrier frequency and modulation accordingly, for effective use of spectrum. This technology enables the unlicensed users to identify an unoccupied spectrum band to exploit temporarily, and then vacate when necessary without harmful interference to the licensed users.

978-1-4673-2815-9/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

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Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province. It is near the Dianchi lake and in the residential zone not having any business center or industrial zone. The center station is connected to the fixed radio monitoring stations in Kunming and in the other states of Yunnan Province via Ethernet. It is equipped with a fixed radio monitoring station of model TCI 745 which is compliant with ITU recommendations. It has a high dynamic range and excellent co-channel frequency resolution. Digital signal processing and multi-channel receiver are unsurpassed for dealing with crowded HF signal environments. The monitoring station is connected to an omni directional active antenna having frequency range of 203000MHz. The antenna is fixed on a 25m tower that is located on the roof of the office building of the Radio Monitoring Control Center. In what follows, the spectrum monitoring campaign was performed at the center monitoring station, and combined with the other 5 fixed stations which were connected to the radio monitoring network, and the spectrum occupancy is analyzed in detail. Here, the other five fixed stations include Wuhua station (St1, Longitude: 102o 42 22 - East, Latitude: 25o 3 3- North) in the center of Kunming, MingzhaiDongcheng Station (St2, Longitude: 102o 44 25 - East, Latitude: 25o 0.8 46- North) that is near Kunming Wujiaba International Airport, Chenggong Station (St3, Longitude: 102o 47 41 - East, Latitude: 24o 53 51- North) in the suburban district of Kunming, Wutai Mountains Station (St4, Longitude: 103o 55 0.4 - East, Latitude: 25o 31 42- North) which is located in the suburban district of Qujing City in the east of Kunming, and the Qiaojia Station (St5, Longitude: 102o 55 52 - East, Latitude: 26o 54 19- North) which is located at Qiaojia County of Zhaotong City in the northeast of Yunnan Province. St1, St2 and St3 are equipped with ESMB Monitoring Receivers. St4 is equipped with a TCI monitoring system, while St5 is equipped with EB110 a small scale spectrum monitoring station.

III.

MEASUREMENT RESULTS AND ANAYSIS

A. Ambinet noise and duty cycle For each station, the spectrum monitoring is performed over two weekdays as suggested in [13].The scanning step size is 200kHz thus given 14901 measurement point in the whole frequency range of 20-3000MHz. For each measurement point, more than one hundred power levels can be received in an hour. Therefore, for each measurement point we have received more than two thousand data samples in one day from 1:00 to 23:00. Taking the Center station as an example, the spectrum monitoring campaign is performed from Apr. 2 to Apr. 4, 2012. The average received power as a function of frequency obtained at about 14:00 in Apr. 2, 2012 is shown in Fig. 3 (Solid blue line). The red line denotes the ambient noise of the device. This plot shows that in many bands, the average received power level is below the ambient noise level. In the following sections, the whole frequency range is divided into 16 sub bands for spectrum occupancy analysis. Average ambient noise in each band for the center station and other five fixed stations used in the spectrum monitoring campaign is illustrated in Table I. Spectrum occupancy, also known as duty cycle, is an important parameter in the assignment of frequency bands, and in further monitoring of their usage. It represents the degree the frequency band that is occupied over the observation period. Generally, the spectrum occupancy is defined as the received signal strength during an observation that is above the ambient noise. In this work, the amount of the effective power levels (Ne) that is above the ambient noise and the total power levels (Nt) at each sub bands illustrated in Table I are estimated; the average spectrum occupancy at each sub band is calculated by Ne/Nt. For the present spectrum monitoring stations which is based on energy detection principle, the ambient noise is a threshold which has a great impact on evaluation of spectrum occupancy. Selecting threshold too low would result in a very conservative occupancy estimate that decides the channel is in use due to the presence of ambient noise. On the other hand selection of high decision threshold may lead to under estimation of spectrum occupancy. Therefore, the calibration of ambient noisy is a key issue in radio monitoring. In the context of the development of CR, the other detection methods [14, 15] including matched-filtering, cyclostationarity-based Sensing, waveform-based sensing, and radio identification based sensing, become research hotspots.

Figure 1. Radio monitoring network in Yunnan Province.

Figure 2. Average received power versus frequency obtained at the Center station.

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Table I Sub frequency bands and ambient noise.

Band

Frequency span (MHz) 20-87.5 87.8-108 108-223 223-400.05 400.05-470 470-566 566-606 606-806 806-890 890-960 960-1215 1215-1710 1710-1880 1880-2170 2170-3000

Average ambient Noise (dBm) Center Station -95 -85 -99 -102 -98 -91 -102 -102 -102 -91 -102 -103 -98 -104 -106 St1 -106 -106 -105 -104 -104 -104 -105 -104 -104 -97 -105 -105 -104 -105 -105 St2 -88 -94 -96 -94 -94 -94 -94 -94 -94 -85 -94 -94 -92 -93 -93 St3 -98 -97 -98 -97 -97 -97 -97 -97 -97 -91 -97 -97 -97 -97 -96 St4 -97 -100 -102 -106 -108 -108 -110 -109 -109 -105 -108 -107 -105 -108 -108 St5 -105 -94 -106 -107 -108 -108 -108 -97 -106 -100 -106 -108 -110 -110 -109

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

B. Spectrum occupancy analysis In this section, we present the spectrum occupancy details of the frequency bands allocated for different wireless services. Taking the center station as an example, the spectrum monitoring campaign is performed for three days. The average duty cycles for each sub band in every day are shown in Table II. From lower to higher frequency side, each sub band is
Band Frequency span(MHz) 20-87.5 87.5-108 108-223 223-400.05 400.05-470 470-566 566-606 606-806 806-890 890-960 960-1215 1215-1710 services

sorted from 1 to 15. Detailed wireless services for each band are illustrated in column three of Table II. For the other five fixed radio monitoring stations, the average occupancy circles for each band are also computed in the same way, and the average spectrum usages are 13.5%, 6.9%, 7.2%, 5% and 4%, respectively. To compare the spectrum occupancy of different locations, the duty circles obtain at each monitoring station are plotted in the form of histograms, as shown in Fig. 3. From Fig. 3, we can clearly observe that the spectrum occupancy is highly dependent on location. For example, sub band 1 (20-87.5MHz) is assigned for Fixed/Mobile, Maritime Mobile Service, and Aeronautical radionavigation service. At the center station and the other two stations (St2 and St3) which are located in the suburban district of Kunming, the spectrum occupancy is larger than 20%. But at St1, St4 and St5, the detected spectrum occupancy is lower than 7%. Especially for St1, which is located at the center of Kunming, the spectrum occupancy for this sub band is below 2%. Sub band 2 (87.5-108MHz) is assigned for FM broadcast service. At all the six monitoring stations, the detected spectrum occupancy for this sub band is above 10%. Taking the measurement results of the Center station as an example, the relation between spectrum occupancy and time at this sub band is plotted in Fig. 4. It is seen that some FM channels, such as FM 99, FM 100.8, FM 101.7, and FM 95.4 are idle from 1:00 to 5:00 in the early morning.

Table II Spectrum occupancy of each sub band measured at the Center station.

Average duty cycle day1

Average duty cycle day2 37.2% 66.8% 26.3% 12.9% 15.2% 61.6% 8.4% 19.2% 22.4% 43.3% 8.2% 0.57% 29.3% 10% 7.1%

Average duty cycle day3 36.4% 65.1% 26.4% 12.7% 14.9% 61.5% 8.4% 19.2% 22.3% 42.4% 7.4% 0.5% 28.6% 10.3% 6.9%

Average of three days 35.7% 65.4% 25.5% 12.7% 15.1% 61.6% 8.2% 19.1% 22.3% 42.7% 7.7% 0.6% 28.7% 10% 7%

Occupied spectrum (MHz) 24.1 13.4 29.3 22.5 10.7 59.1 3.3 38.2 18.7 29.9 19.6 3.0 48.8 29.0 58.1 407.7 2980 13.7%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15

1710-1880 1880-2170 2170-3000

UHF TV, Fixed/Mobile, Maritime Mobile 33.5% Service, Aeronautical radionavigation service FM broadcast 64.3% Aeronautical radionavigation service, Radiodetermination service, Space research 23.9% service Fixed/Mobile, Aeronautical mobile-satellite 12.6% service UHF TV, Meteorological aids service, Earth 15.2% exploration-satellite service UHF TV, Space research service 61.6% Fixed/Mobile, Radiodetermination service 7.7% Fixed/Mobile, UHF TV 18.8% Fixed/Mobile, Radiodetermination service 22.2% GSM900 42.3% Aeronautical radionavigation service 7.4% Radiodetermination service, Aeronautical radionavigation service, Earth explorationsatellite service, Radio astronomy service, 0.6% Mobile-satellite service, Meteorological aids service GSM 1880 28.2% 3G 9.8% SM, BWA 6.9% Total occupied bandwidth (MHz) Total available bandwidth(MHz) Average spectrum usage (%)

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Figure 5. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time for the sub band 6 (470-566MHz) obtained at the Center Station (Apr. 2, 2012).

Figure 3. Band by band spectrum occupancy. (a) Center Station. (b) Wuhua Station (St1). (c) Mingzhai-Dongcheng Station (St2). (d) Chenggong Station (St3). (e) Wutai Mountains Station (St4). (f) Qiaojia Station (St5).

Figure 4. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time for the sub band 2 (87.5-108MHz) obtained at the Center Station (Apr. 2, 2012).

Sub band 3 (108-223MHz) and 4 (223-400.5MHz) are assigned for Aeronautical radionavigation service, Radiodetermination service, Space research service Fixed/ Mobile, and Aeronautical mobile-satellite service, etc. At these sub bands, the spectrum occupancy varies distinctly with location. For example, at the Center Station which is in the

suburban district of Kunming, the detected spectrum occupancy for these sub band is more than 15%; but at St1 which is located at the center of Kunming, the detect spectrum occupancy indicates that these sub bands are almost idle. Sub band 5 (400.5-470MHz) is assigned for meteorological aids service, earth exploration-satellite service, etc. From Fig. 3, we can observe that the spectrum occupancy is quit low for this sub band at most locations, especially at St1, the detected spectrum occupancy for this sub band is low than 1%. Sub band 6 (470-566MHz) is assigned for UHF TV and Space research service. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time of this sub band detected at the Center Station is plotted in Fig. 5. For a TV band, the span is 8MHz. From Fig. 5, we can clearly observe that only five channels are in use in this sub band, that is, Channel 13 (470-478 MHz), Channel 15 (486-494 MHz), Channel 18 (510-518 MHz), Channel 21 (534-542 MHz) and Channel 23 (550-558 MHz). It means that a large portion of spectrum in this assigned sub band is idle in a whole day. Besides, in Fig. 3, it is worth to note that the spectrum occupancy of sub band 6 also shows a geographical dependent characteristic. The detected spectrum occupancy at the Center station, St1, St2, St3 and St5 for this sub band varies from 10% to 60%. But at St4, the detected spectrum occupancy is near zero. This is due to the factor that St4 is a highland radio monitoring station which is located at the top of Wutai mountain with altitude of more than two thousands meters. The deployment of the highland station has effectively overcome the influence of surrounding buildings on the transmission of radio wave in urban environment. It is much more efficient in the monitoring and direction finding of illegal access. Since Yunnan Province is situated in a mountainous area, we have deployed many highland monitoring stations. Sub bands 7 (566-606MHz), 11(960-1215MHz) and 12 (1215-1710MHz) are assigned for Fixed/Mobile, Radiodetermination service, Aeronautical radionavigation service, Radio astronomy service and Meteorological aids service, etc. The spectrum occupancy of these sub bands is dependent on

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geographical position. For example, at St1 which is located at the center of Kunming, the detected spectrum occupancy for sub band 12 is above 10%, but the spectrum occupancy for the same sub band detected by the other stations is nearly zero. Besides, from Fig.3 we can also observe that the spectrum occupancy of sub band 15 (2170-3000MHz) measured by most of these monitoring stations is quite low except St1. This is due to the factor that this sub band includes scientific & medical service, broad band wireless access service. The broad band wireless services (WiFi) are employed in the indoor environment and wireless hotspots. The transmitting power is relatively low, and then only St1 has detected these signals. This indicates that the occupancy or idle state of an assigned spectrum band cannot be simply revealed by the measurement result of a single radio station. Therefore, the establishing of the radio monitoring network is very important, and more stations will be added into the network in the future. Sub band 8 (606-806MHz) is assigned for Fixed/Mobile service and UHF TV. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time in this sub band is shown in Fig. 6. It is

Figure 6. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time for the sub band 8 (606-806MHz) obtained at the Center Station (Apr. 2, 2012).

seen that the Only Channel 32 (662-670 MHz), Channel 35(686-694 MHz) and Channel 47 (782-790 MHz) are in use. Most of the other spectrum is at the idle state in a whole day. Sub band 9 (806-890MHz) is assigned for Fix/Mobile service and Radiodetermination service. The spectrum occupancy of this sub band detected by the center station is 22.3%. At the other five stations, the detected spectrum occupancy for this sub band is about 10%. Taking the measurement results of the Center Station as an example, the relation between spectrum occupancy and time at this sub band is shown in Fig. 7. We can see that most of the spectrum is idle. Sub bands 10 (890-960MHz) and 13 (1710-1880MHz) are assigned for GSM 900 and GSM 1800, respectively. The spectrum occupancy of these two sub band detected by the Center Station are 42.7% and 28.7%, respectively. Spectrum occupancy versus time of these sub bands are plotted in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9. It can be noted that the uplink and downlink sides are not identical. This can be explained as follows. The control channels for GSM 900 and GSM 1800 are constantly being broadcasted by the base station on the downlink channel, thus it seems be fully occupied. On the other hand, the uplink channel is randomly accessed by the mobile terminals. Besides, if there is no active communication there is still periodical control information that is transferred from a mobile terminal to the network through the uplink, but the power is relatively much lower, and it is not detected in this campaign. Sub band 14 (1880-2170MHz) is assigned for 3G service. From Fig. 3 we can observe that the spectrum occupancy for this band is relatively low. At St1, the detected spectrum occupancy for this sub band is lower than 20%, at the other stations which are located in the suburban district the detected occupancy is lower than 10%. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time in this sub band is plotted in Fig. 10. It doesnt show any occupancy in the uplink. This is due to the factor that the 3G service such as WCDMA is a spread spectrum system where the signal is modulated over a larger bandwidth, and uplink signal has a very low transmission power. It is not detected in this campaign.

Figure 7. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time for the sub band 9 (806-890MHz) obtained at the Center Station (Apr. 2, 2012).

Figure 8. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time for the sub band 10 (890-960MHz) obtained at the Center Station (Apr. 2, 2012).

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61161007) and Wireless Innovation Laboratory jointly constructed by School of Information Science and Engineering of Yunnan University, and the Radio Monitoring Center of Yunnan province. REFERENCES
[1] [2] S. Pollin, M. Timmers and L. V. der Perre, Software defined radios: from smart(er) to cognitive, New York: Springer, 2011, pp. 1-8. D. Z. Chen, J. J. Yang, H. Tang, J. X. Lin, M. Huang, Research progress in radio monitoring techniques, The 2nd International Conference on Aerospace Engineering and Information Technology, Nanchang, China, May 2012, vol.2, pp. 83-87. Qi Zhu Song, Frequency allocation mechanism for new generation wireless technology and its application, Beijing: Publishing House of Electronics Industry, 2011. Federal Communications Commission, Spectrum Policy Task Force Report, 2002. J. Mitola III, Cognitive Radio: an integrated agent architecture for software defined radio, Ph.D. dissertation, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2000. Definitions of Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Cognitive Radio System (CRS), International Telecommunication Union, Report ITU-R SM.2152, Sept. 2009. M. A. McHenry, P. A. Tenhula, D. McCloskey, D. A. Roberson and C. S. Hood, Chicago Spectrum Occupancy Measurements & Analysis and a Long-term Studies Proposal, in Proc. of Workshop on Technology and Policy for Accessing Spectrum (TAPAS), Boston, USA, Aug. 2006. R. I. C. Chiang, G. B. Rowe and K. W. Sowerby, A Quantitative Analysis of Spectral Occupancy Measurements for Cognitive Radio, in Proc. of IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), Dublin, Ireland, April 2007. K. Patil, K. Skouby, A. Chandra and R. Prasad, Spectrum Occupancy Statistics in the Context of Cognitive Radio, Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC), The 14th International Symposium on, France, Brest, Oct. 2011. M. Islam, G. L. Tan, F. Chin, B. E. Toh, Y.-C. Liang, C. Wang, Y. Y. Lai, X. Qing, S. W. Oh, C. L. Koh and W. Toh, Spectrum Survey in Singapore: Occupancy Measurements and Analyses, in Proc. of International Conference on Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and Communications (CROWNCOM), Singapore, May 2008, pp. 1-7. M. R. Dzulkifli, M. R. Kamarudin and T. A. Rahman, Spectrum occupancy at UHF TV band for cognitive radio applications, 2011 IEEE International RF and Microwave Conference (RFM 2011), Seremban, Malaysia, Dec. 2011, pp. 111-114. Y. Han, Y. Wen, W. Tang and S. Li, Spectrum Occupancy Measurement: Focus on the TV Frequency, The 2nd International Conference on Signal Processing Systems (ICSPS), Dalian, China, July 2010, pp. V2-490-494. M. Lpez-Bentez and F. Casadevall, Methodological aspects of spectrum occupancy evaluation in the context of Cognitive Radio in Proceedings of the 15th European Wireless Conference (EW 2009), Aalborg, Denmark, May, 2009, pp. 199-204. T. Ycek and H. Arslan, A survey of spectrum sensing algorithms for cognitive radio applications, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, vol. 11, pp. 116-130, 2009. B. B. Wang and K. J. Ray Liu, Advances in cognitive radio networks: a survey, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Prodessing, vol. 5, pp. 5-23, Feb. 2011.

[3] Figure 9. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time for the sub band 13 (1710-1880 MHz) obtained at the Center Station (Apr. 2, 2012). [4] [5] [6] [7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

Figure 10. The relation between spectrum occupancy and time for the sub band 14 (1880-2170MHz) obtained at the Center Station (Apr. 2, 2012). [11]

IV.

CONCLUSION
[12]

In this work, we have investigated the spectrum occupancy for the frequency span of 20-3000MHz in Kunming and the nearby cities and counties based on the spectrum monitoring network in Yunnan Province. The measurement results show that the spectrum occupancy of the entire frequency band is lower than 13.7%. The spectrum occupancy rates are highly dependent on space and time. In the TV band, a large amount of spectrum is at the idle state in a whole day, and it can be considered for dynamic spectrum access. In the GSM bands, the downlink is fully occupied while the uplink is randomly accessed by mobile terminals. These results are obtained based on energy detection principle, which is very sensitive to ambient noise. Therefore, dynamic detection of noise and the development of noise independent monitoring method is the future work of our Lab.

[13]

[14] [15]

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