Quantifying secondary spectrum and optimal timescales in mobile wireless communications

The sub-optimal methods currently used to allocate and manage electromagnetic spectrum results in a significant waste of spectrum resources. This wasted 'secondary' spectrum, presents a significant engineering opportunity for developing novel methods and systems to 'capture' and utilise. Limited techniques are available for determining, to a high degree, the underlying structure of secondary spectrum and the implications that timescales of observation and operation present to this structure. Additionally, no formal method exists for quantifying and evaluating these structures. This lack of understanding is instead substituted for randomness, making it difficult to develop effective secondary spectrum access systems. To address this lack of insight, power and latency implications for future secondary spectrum access systems with respect to timescale is identified, followed by the construction of a low cost high resolution measurement system to provide real world context. Leveraging these findings and capabilities, a novel 'Whites- pace Opportunity Distribution' algorithm is developed, providing an unprecedented view into the structure of secondary spectrum opportunities in both time and frequency. These insights are captured in the collaborative development of several novel secondary spectrum access and spectrum management technologies. This thesis presents several inventions, novel analysis techniques and evaluation methods to further the understanding of the impact of timescales on secondary spectrum utilisation.