NASCTN Initiates First Spectrum-Sharing Project

The National Advanced Spectrum and Communications Test Network (NASCTN) has launched its first spectrum-sharing project, focusing on the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS).

The CBRS was created by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year to promote a three-tiered, spectrum-sharing environment that will eventually allow federal and commercial wireless communications systems to operate in frequency bands primarily used by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for the operation of radar systems.

The NASCTN project, launched in September 2015, was proposed by Federated Wireless, Inc. (Arlington, Virginia). Other participants are NASCTN partners NIST, NTIA and DOD. The project will focus on the development of test methods to validate the performance of an environmental sensing capability, which is a network of sensors that can monitor the spectrum environment. This data is provided to spectrum access systems, which coordinate the use of this frequency band.

A key aspect of this project will be the development of a suite of waveforms for radars that operate in the CBRS frequency band. With a NASCTN-validated library of radar waveforms and test procedures, developers of spectrum access systems will be able to validate the performance of their environmental sensing capability.