A New Taxonomy for Symbiotic EM Sensors

TL;DR

This paper proposes extending spectrum sharing concepts from the TV White Space standard to networks of electromagnetic sensors, enabling more efficient coexistence and access in crowded spectral environments.

Contribution

It introduces a new taxonomy for symbiotic EM sensors, adapting spectrum sharing ideas to improve sensor networks and their coexistence with communication systems.

Findings

Defines Networks of Sensors and their history.

Proposes a new taxonomy based on symbiosis.

Suggests spectrum sharing enhances sensor network capabilities.

Abstract

It is clear that the EM spectrum is now rapidly reaching saturation, especially for frequencies below 10~GHz. Governments, who influence the regulatory authorities around the world, have resorted to auctioning the use of spectrum, in a sense to gauge the importance of a particular user. Billions of USD are being paid for modest bandwidths. The earth observation, astronomy and similar science driven communities cannot compete financially with such a pressure system, so this is where governments have to step in and assess /regulate the situation. It has been a pleasure to see a situation where the communications and broadcast communities have come together to formulate sharing of an important part of the spectrum (roughly, 50 MHz to 800 MHz) in an IEEE standard, IEEE802.22. This standard (known as the "TV White Space Network" (built on lower level standards) shows a way that fixed and mobile users can collaborate in geographically widespread regions, using cognitive radio and geographic databases of users. This White Space (WS) standard is well described in the literature and is not the major topic of this short paper. We wish to extend the idea of the WS concept to include the idea of EM sensors (such as Radar) adopting this approach to spectrum sharing, providing a quantum leap in access to spectrum. We postulate that networks of sensors, using the tools developed by the WS community, can replace and enhance our present set of EM sensors. We first define what Networks of Sensors entail (with some history), and then go on to define, based on a Taxonomy of Symbiosis defined by de Bary\cite{symb}, how these sensors and other users (especially communications) can co-exist. This new taxonomy is important for understanding, and should replace somewhat outdated terminologies from the radar world.