Policy-Enhanced Spectrum Operations: Analysis and proof of concept implementation

Spectrum access is critical to modern military operations. Increasing demand and competition for spectrum is occurring as the spectrum landscape changes. As spectrum operations evolve to become more decentralized, collaborative, adaptive, agile and flexible, new approaches to spectrum operations are needed. This paper proposes Policy-Enhanced Spectrum Operations (PESO) as an approach to increasing automation of the spectrum management lifecycle by applying digital policies to spectrum management systems in support of dynamic, agile, and flexible spectrum access. PESO is developed using the context of Operation Damayan, the HA/DR mission in response to the devastating typhoon that hit the Philippines in November 2013. Analysis of the spectrum operations concepts utilized during the mission is performed and a subset of concepts are extracted and serve as the basis for the implementation of a Proof of Concept (PoC) demonstration based on Semantic Web technologies. As part of the design of the PoC, the extracted concepts are formalized as OWL ontologies and SPARQL policies. The demonstration illustrates the workflow for coordination of frequency assignment with the Philippines.