Combining automatic radio monitoring and license databases for future spectrum management

Several radio monitoring campaigns have been carried out in the past at different locations to determine the degree to which radio spectrum is currently used. The purpose of these measurement campaigns is to show if the radio spectrum, which is a non-expandable and non-importable national resource, is efficiently used at a certain place. Although all of these campaigns follow the similar approach, they are not comparable due to a lack of common measurement setups and evaluation methodologies. Moreover, none of these monitoring campaigns compare their measurement results with the corresponding spectrum management data. This work presents a novel evaluation methodology by taking the a priori data of the spectrum management into account. Starting with a precise description of the measurement setup and a definition of a newly defined threshold for signal detection, this study presents an evaluation methodology that automatically compares the measurement results with the corresponding spectrum management data in the frequency bands UHF IV and V. With this approach the monitoring system delivers beside the common spectrum occupancy value a novel signal identification index that indicates if the detected emission is listed in the spectrum management database. The spectrum management data used in this measurement campaign is a public transmitter database of the German regulator and the signal identification is based on the evaluation of the center frequency, bandwidth and spectral shape of the emission.