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IMEC shows integrated spectrum scan for cognitive radio

 

At a technology forum meeting it held to mark the 25th anniversary of its inception, research organisation IMEC (based in Leuven, Belgium) announced that it has demonstrated the first spectrum-sensing capabilities for cognitive radios. IMEC’s group science director wireless research Liesbet Van der Perre explains that in the organisation’s definition, cognitive radio comprises a facility to detect existing signal usage of the spectrum in its facility, coupled with a decision-making capability to shape its own operation accordingly. Using its integrated reconfigurable radio platform, IMEC’s experimental setup senses information on spectrum occupancy from UMTS and WLAN signals in specific bands. It retrieves information on the frequency and bandwidth, with estimates for power and noise. The system includes an ASIC implementation of a programmable baseband platform and a flexible RF transceiver front-end, which are capable in principle of scanning the entire band from 100MHz to 6GHz. This includes the exanalogue- TV bands, which are to become vacant by the switch to digital TV and which are sometimes termed “white spaces”. In these bands, cognitive devices aim to detect the primary users of frequency bands, thus allowing the secondary use of the band without interfering with the primary users.

A key driver for the future success of small and portable TVBDs (TV-band devices) will be an efficient and low-power sensing technology, IMEC says; its work is directed to optimising a flexible, costfriendly and energy-efficient engine for spectrum sensing. Its experimental spectrumsensing solution runs on its software-defined radio prototype.

IMEC, www.imec.be.