Radio Dynamic Zones: Motivations, Challenges, and Opportunities to Catalyze Spectrum Coexistence

Abstract

The wireless spectrum is a natural resource upon which we all depend in more ways than we realize. While our personal and professional lives thrive on mobile broadband, a plethora of other applications, such as weather forecasting, climate science, astronomy, space exploration, and civil/military navigation also critically depend on the radio spectrum. Although these technologies are vastly different, they all share a common need for more spectrum and increasingly converge to the same bands. Currently, technological and policy frameworks are insufficient to facilitate the required mutual trust across distinct applications, and ensure their protection and harmonious coexistence. This article discusses Radio Dynamic Zones (RDZ) as experimental platforms for large-scale research on spectrum coexistence of disparate stakeholders. We consider three representative stakeholder technologies that have experienced exponential growth in spectrum needs and capabilities: consumer broadband, microwave remote sensing, and radio astronomy. We detail emerging coexistence issues across these stakeholders that can inform the design of RDZs. We then conceptualize an RDZ architecture and desired features and discuss grand research challenges towards their realization.