Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Spectrum management in cognitive radio

[Stephen Berger]

Galen,

 

You raise a very important point.  There are a lot of other systems that are sensitive to RF but not RF transmitters.  Any new use of spectrum really should try to foresee and avoid those impacts.

 

We had a major ‘train wreck’ in this area in the mid-90’s when cellular went digital.  GSM in particular caused all kinds of hearing aid and other kinds of interference.  The FCC chairmen at the time took an active hand in resolving that.  I found myself in congressional hearing rooms (absent the congresspersons) because their cell phones were interfering with the mics and audio amps, making it hard to hear the congressmen (you can imagine how warmly the politicians responded to the press not being able to hear their every word!!).

 

An area I work in a lot and worry about a lot is demodulated RF mimicking a biologic signature.  We have lots of medical equipment, including implanted pacemakers, sensing very low level signals.  If RF hits them and demodulates in a way that it looks like a heartbeat or some other signal bad things could happen.

 

Perhaps the best contribution the GNURadio community can make it to continue to develop and improve the ‘on ramps’ to using GNURadio so that it becomes increasingly feasible to make spectrum measurements and run tests, especially run tests which new ideas are just that and not like the GSM case where we learned of the problem after millions of devices were out and in use.

 

I was actually talking to one of the FDA research staff about this yesterday.  I would like to help build an educational on-ramp to using GNURadio for those in the medical device community, including research staff at the FDA.  There is a lot of great help already out there, like the tutorials on the GNURadio site.  I would love to hear thoughts on how to make the on-ramp shorter and smoother.  Essentially, where does more work do the most good on this topic?

 

Best Regards,

Stephen Berger