Cloud-based spectrum sensing system: First field results

To estimate available spectrum for dynamic access in the context of cognitive radio, many of the designed systems rely on dedicated complex software defined radio (SDR) receivers with onboard powerful signal processing capabilities, connected through dedicated high speed networks to complex processing backends, transmitting their measurements in real time to a central system. Even if promising results have been achieved with these systems, we believe this architecture does not scale if an area wider than the lab has to be covered. In real conditions, one would have to select good installation sites, engineer antenna location and setup, install a high speed dedicated network link, falling back to the usual issues mobile phone carriers are facing, raising again the problems that were at the birth of small cell cognitive networks. Our approach was to look for solutions to deployment from the beginning of the study and integrate scalable capabilities with limited costs in the rationale of the architecture design. Our `Cloud SDR' architecture aims at being a Self-organized, dynamic, self calibrated, cloud oriented spectrum sensing system to perform continuous spectrum occupation measurements at a country-wide scale. In this paper we describe the main features of the system and present preliminary results obtained with the sensing stations deployed in the suburbs of Paris, France, during the first semester of 2014.