Algorithms and bounds for estimating location, directionality, and environmental parameters of primary spectrum users

Most existing work on dynamic spectrum access deals with creating a spectral and temporal map of spectrum white space, and then filling it. The spectrum can be better utilized by increasing the spatial awareness of secondary users to include knowledge of the locations of all primary and secondary users, as well as the orientations and parameters of their directional or omni-directional antennas. This paper derives a maximum likelihood (ML) algorithm, an approximate ML algorithm, and associated performance bounds for jointly estimating a transmitter's position, orientation, beam width, and transmit power, as well as the environment's path loss exponent, using received signal strength measurements. The methods can be used for either a primary or secondary user. Simulations are used to determine what types of sensor geometries lead to good estimates of each parameter, to evaluate the performance of the estimators, and to determine spectrum availability as a function of spatial coordinates.