Sensor Placement and Detection Coverage for Spectrum Sharing in the 3.5 GHz Band

The Federal Communications Commission rules for operation in the 3.5 GHz band require that an Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) system detect the presence of a federal incumbent shipborne radar in order to protect it from harmful interference. Thus, ESC operators have to deploy ESC sensors along the coasts to comply with the rules. We formulate the ESC sensor deployment problem as a coverage problem where ESC sensors need to cover a predefined geometric area inside which radar may experience harmful interference. Using propagation models and radar parameters, we compute antenna lobe patterns for different beamwidths and detection thresholds of the ESC sensors. These patterns are then used to cover the geometric area such that both outage and excess coverage areas are minimized. We present a greedy algorithm and apply it to Dynamic Protection Areas currently being defined for the coasts of the contiguous United States. We evaluate its performance in terms of some key metrics important to the federal incumbent as well as commercial operators.