Citizen's Broadband Radio Service enables micro-operators to provide Industrial automation

This demonstration shows how CBRS spectrum sharing can be utilized by a micro-operator to deploy a mobile network for Industrial Internet in a factory environment. We will showcase the ability to identify and capture spectrum at a targeted geographical area combined with the ability to enable usage of that spectrum at the needed service level for the use case as a Service. Spectrum sharing with Citizen's Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) opens the 3.5 GHz band for innovative communication use in the USA. Micro-operators operate mobile networks in a limited area like hospitals, malls, sports arenas, campuses, or factories. Machinery, robotics, control, and sensors are integrated by Industrial automation in factories and other industrial establishments.

The demonstration implements the latest CBRS specifications of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Wireless Innovation Forum (WInnF). Spectrum Access System (SAS) and Domain Proxy (DP) communicate according to Spectrum Access System (SAS) - Citizens Broadband Radio Service Device (CBSD) Interface Technical Specification. SAS protects the incumbents by fulfilling Requirements for Commercial Operation in the US 3550-3700 MHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service Band. The functionality is verified with the methodology described in CBRS Architecture Test and Certification Specification.

The demonstrated Network as a Service (NaaS) deployment consists of commercial Long Term Evolution (LTE) User Equipment (UEs), eNodeBs operating as Citizen's Broadband Service Devices (CBSDs), and virtualized hosted Evolved Packet Core (EPC).  The implemented programmable cognitive network operating system is based on commercially available Network Management System (NMS), Self Organizing Network (SON) and Mobile Edge Cloud (MEC) platforms. Domain Proxy and SAS are prototypes of possible future products. The LTE network is installed in the Nokia factory in Oulu, Finland. It is operated under General Authorized Access (GAA) regime on 3.5 GHz band. The incumbents are created for the demonstration purpose, and their information is brought to SAS in the same format as specified by FCC and WInnF. The system can be operated and monitored remotely. The demonstrated user interfaces include views of the system monitoring.

The demonstration verifies architecture, protocol, interference protection, and testing specifications of FCC and WInnF within the implemented functions. It shows interoperability between a Domain Proxy - CBSD provider and a SAS provider. The demonstration confirms the integration between a commercial mobile network and a CBRS spectrum sharing system. The industrial network installation shows the feasibility of CBRS for micro-operators in vertical markets engaged in industrial automation that belongs to one of the most potential break-through business cases for CBRS.

Deterministic and cognitive wireless communication  system with jamming-resistant capabilities for tactical or  industrial communications

This work presents a jamming-resistant and deterministic wireless communication system, which is intended to be used in tactical or industrial communications. These kind of applications require data communication to be bounded in the time and reliability domains, no matter which is the harshness of the environment or the presence of malicious interferences. In harsh propagation environments, communication systems suffer from severe signal degradation, including delay spread, deep fading and Doppler spread. Besides, they must also deal with other system’s interference and jammer attacks.

Unfortunately, traditional wireless communication systems are not able to overcome all these difficulties and, at the same time, fulfill with the aforementioned requirements. As a consequence, it is necessary to deploy new wireless communication systems like the one presented in this work, based on cognitive radio technology. The proposed wireless communication system, shown in Fig. 1, is based on a custom Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modem design which has been implemented on the programmable logic of a Xilinx Zynq Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The modem is fully customizable, in case it is needed to add new features, and it is similar to the IEEE 802.11a/g physical layer standard. On top of this modem, a deterministic, real-time and cognitive Medium Access Control (MAC) layer has been implemented and evaluated. Based on a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) MAC, which ensures deterministic communications in the absence of interference, cognitive capabilities have been added. Unlike traditional cognitive radios, which are used in order to enhance spectrum utilization, the presented wireless communication system is able to detect interference (malicious or coming from other wireless communication systems) and switch the communication to an unoccupied and safe frequency band. Simulations in OPNET and measurements on real hardware have been carried out, which demonstrate the capability of the system to guarantee deterministic data delivery time even in the presence of interference.

A test setup has been prepared with the communication system configured with a frame length of 3.85 ms and a data lifetime of 30 ms. Besides, a jammer generating interferences has been added. In an scenario in which only the frequency the communication system is working is interfered, a single frequency hop is forced and a recovery time bounded between 8.5 and 12.5 ms is achieved. If both, the frequency in which the communication system is working and the one into the first hop is performed are interfered, thus forcing two frequency hops, the achieved recovery time is bounded between 20 and 23.7 ms. In both scenarios the 30 ms data lifetime is fulfilled.