A Practical Approach to Placing Coastal Sensors for Spectrum Sharing in the 3.5 GHz Band

Commercial-federal spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band requires an Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) system, consisting of sensors deployed along the coasts, to detect federal incumbent shipborne radar in order to protect it from harmful interference from commercial users. The coastal waters where the radar needs protection from interference are divided into a chain of contiguous polygons called Dynamic Protection Areas (DPAs). The sensor(s) associated with each DPA must cover that DPA completely but should minimize any excess coverage on land, in neighboring DPAs, and out at sea. Thus, placement of sensors and their operating parameters are determined by solving this coverage problem. We use existing tower sites as candidate locations for the sensors and the Irregular Terrain Model (ITM) in point-to-point mode to compute the path loss. We present an algorithm for computing the locations and operating parameters of the sensors such that the excess area, and thus the probability of false alarm, is minimized.