Spectrum management system

• US 8,885,527 B2
• Filed: 06/03/2011
• Issued: 11/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Spectrum Bridge, Inc.
• Inventors: Koos, William W., Hamilla, Joseph M., Stanforth, Peter, Koos, Larry W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Eric T
• Application Number:
  US13/152,673
• Publication Number:
  US 20110231302A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,257 Days
• Field of Search: 455/452.1, 340/310
• US Class Current: 370/310
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06395 Quality analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/60 Business processes related to postal services shipping G06Q10/083; franking apparatus G07B17/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/27 between access points
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/90 Financial instruments for climate change mitigation, e.g. environmental taxes, subsidies or financing

Abstract

Transferring spectrum use rights may include ascertaining information regarding available spectrum for use in wireless communications. A request for spectrum use from a spectrum user system may be matched with available spectrum. A spectrum certificate may be issued to the spectrum user system, where the spectrum certificate contains at least one spectrum-related variable under which the spectrum user system is to engage in wireless communications.

Claims

1. A wireless radio system of a spectrum user, comprising:

a radio circuit configured to engage in wireless communications using spectrum allocated to the wireless radio system by a broker system and under which spectrum use rights are temporary and transferred from a spectrum holder via the broker system;

the broker system allocating spectrum from plural spectrum holders to plural wireless radio systems; and

the spectrum allocated to the wireless radio system and, correspondingly, spectrum holders associated with the allocated spectrum, changing over time in accordance with expiration and commencement of the temporary rights, each holder being an entity having the authority to release spectrum use to another entity by granting the other entity access to the spectrum and releases spectrum use rights to a pool of spectrum managed by the broker system;

a spectrum demand analyzer configured to analyze spectrum demand data, to identify spectrum demand by the radio circuit, and generate a request for spectrum based on the identified spectrum demand;

an interface to the broker system over which the request is communicated to the broker system and over which the wireless radio device receives spectrum certificates from the broker system, each spectrum certificate being a data object that represents allocated spectrum for a time duration and defines a fragment of spectrum for wireless communications conducted by the radio circuit in terms of time, frequency, geography and power as a temporary transfer of spectrum use rights from the corresponding spectrum holder to the wireless radio system; and

a control circuit that carries out a certificate agent function to bind the radio circuit to conduct wireless communications in accordance with the spectrum defined by the spectrum certificates.

2. The wireless radio system of claim 1, wherein the wireless radio system includes plural radio devices each having a radio circuit for carrying out the wireless communication and the control circuit is part of a supervisory device that regulates each of the plural radio devices to operate in accordance with the spectrum certificates.

3. The wireless radio system of claim 1, wherein the request is communicated to the broker system as a bid that has at least one of an associated monetary price or an associated non-monetary value.

4. The wireless radio system of claim 1, wherein the spectrum certificate is generated by the broker system by automatically matching spectrum need in the communicated request to available spectrum with an expert system of the broker system that is configured to treat the available spectrum from each spectrum holder as one or more spectrum commodity items, each spectrum commodity item having a time dimension, a geography dimension and a frequency dimension that combine to define an available spectrum fragment.

5. The wireless radio system of claim 4, wherein spectrum defined by the spectrum certificate is disaggregated from spectrum of one of the spectrum commodity items in at least one of time, frequency or geography.

6. The wireless radio system of claim 4, wherein spectrum defined by the spectrum certificate is aggregated from the spectrum of plural spectrum commodity items and the plural spectrum commodity items are discontinuous in at least one of time, frequency or geography.

7. The wireless radio system of claim 4, wherein the expert system of the broker system, when matching the need for spectrum with the spectrum commodity item, makes no distinction with respect to service rules and regulatory considerations that are associated with the spectrum defined by the spectrum commodity item so that the broker system does not impose restriction on the use of the corresponding spectrum by the wireless radio system.

8. The wireless radio system of claim 4, wherein the expert system of the broker system, when matching the need for spectrum with the spectrum commodity item, matches the need for spectrum with the spectrum commodity item independent of regulatory agency service rules for a communications application and radio type of the wireless radio system by relying on a regulatory agency certification of the wireless radio system to maintain operation of the radio circuit within the spectrum certificate.

9. The wireless radio system of claim 4, wherein the expert system of the broker system, when matching the need for spectrum with the spectrum commodity item, considers interference tolerance of the wireless radio system.

10. The wireless radio system of claim 1, wherein the request specifies need for spectrum in terms of at least a time frame and supported frequencies information, and without specification of regulatory rules for a wireless communication application of the wireless radio system.

11. The wireless radio system of claim 1, wherein the geography for the spectrum certificate is defined in terms of a geography-based emission mask that includes a geographical boundary that a radio operating in accordance with the geography-based emission mask is not permitted to transmit beyond in one of an absolute manner or a relative manner specified by a power value at a geographical location.