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Overview > Technical Approach

 

To fulfill the goals of COGEU and hence propose, develop and evaluate solutions for the efficient exploitation of TVWS in the European context, the project work flow is divided into three phases over its three year duration as Fig. 1 shows. In the first stage detailed scenarios and business/market models will be explored. During the second phase research on enabling technologies will take place. During the third phase of the project a spectrum trading demonstrator will be implemented for selected scenarios.


Fig. 1: COGEU work flow

 

During the three phases, the work plan is structured into eight work packages, as shown in Fig. 2.


Fig. 2: COGEU Gantt chart showing work packages, lead beneficiaries and timing

 

COGEU work packages are complementary and interdependent, as seen in fig.3. The following is the description of the main objectives of each work package.


Fig. 3: COGEU Work Packages interdependencies

 

WP1: Project management

Main Objectives:
  • Coordination of the overall performance of the project.
  • Monitoring of technical focus and coherence of the project as a whole.
  • Promote collaboration between partners and resolve possible internal conflicts.
  • Promote project visibility and successful exploitation of project results.

WP2: European TV white spaces use-cases, economics and regulation

Main Objectives:

  • Survey of TVWS market and regulatory trends in different European countries.
  • Identification of COGEU use-cases where spectrum sharing business models of TVWS are technically and economically viable.
  • Implementation of software tools required to validate the use of spectrum trading through economic models.
  • Proposal of regulatory policies that are needed towards the realization of true spectrum sharing systems at European level after the digital switch-over.

WP3: TVWS system requirements and network architecture

Main Objectives:

  • Defining the set of system level requirements that are necessary to design, implement and validate the COGEU use cases identified in WP2.
  • Defining the COGEU reference architecture and interfaces for the spectrum commons and the secondary spectrum market models.

WP4: Sensing and interference measurements

Main Objectives:

  • Measurement of spectrum and characterization of TVWS.
  • Investigation of algorithms for detecting TVWS and for supporting their exploitation.
  • Setting up of an experimental test bed for coexistence analysis between commercial DVB-T receivers and TVWS devices in realistic scenarios.
  • Quantification of the impact of TVWS devices on DVB-T receivers and defining guidelines for TVWS equipment certification and compliance.
WP5: TVWS radio transceiver

Main Objectives:
  • Assembling of a Software Defined Radio platform that is suitable for prototyping TVWS devices and can be used to showcase COGEU scientific advances.
  • Integration of the sensing techniques and database access techniques developed in WP4 in order to make spectrum opportunity observations available to the cognitive radio.
  • Creation and implementation of algorithms for shaping the transmitted waveforms to fit the available resources whether the spectrum is contiguous or fragmented, as well as apply rendezvous methods to connect devices.
  • Evaluating the performance of the COGEU TVWS transceiver.

WP6: Dynamic radio resource management and protocols

Main Objectives:

  • Investigating Radio Resource Management (RRM) to optimize spectrum utilization, minimize interference, and guarantee fairness in TVWS access.
  • Development of techniques that integrate QoS aspects in dynamic spectrum management.
  • Investigation of how reliable data delivery is affected by routing and transport protocols across regions of different spectrum availability.
  • Provision of protocols that will allow players to efficiently negotiate spectrum information parameters with a spectrum broker.
  • Evaluation of system level RRM algorithms according to the COGEU use-case scenarios specified in WP2.

WP7: Integration and evaluation

Main Objectives:

  • Definition of COGEU test cases and developing the demonstrator.
  • Designing, development and integration of real time secondary spectrum market demonstrator.
  • Validation of the demonstrator through “in the lab” and outdoor experiments.

WP8: Dissemination, standardisation and exploitation

Main Objectives:

  • Planning for the widespread utilization and exploitation of the COGEU project results, during and after the project lifetime.
  • Demonstration of the COGEU system concept at key events and exhibitions.
  • Contribution to standardization bodies; propose inputs to regulatory bodies and participation at clusters with related European and International research projects, if possible.
  • Promotion of the dissemination of the COGEU results through conferences, archival journals, workshops and the World-Wide-Web. That said, you are now enjoying the results of WP8!