Spectrum Efficient Technology Today, Tomorrow and Beyond

Abstract

In preparation for the onslaught of the commercial wireless appetite, we, the test community, must continually invest in methods to better utilize the Department of Defense (DoD) Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum allocations and or leverage the shared commercial space. There is an ever increasing demand for the limited physical allocations within the RF spectrum for wireless communications. This has never been more prevalent within the test community as it is today with the continuing encroachment of the commercial wireless communication systems. These commercial entities are investing billions of dollars to insure that the bandwidth demands of the public are met which in turn will affect the DoD allocations and usage. Based on the need for increasing data rates, number of simultaneous tests, number of test participants and competition from the commercial sector, the test community must continually improve our efficiency of use within the wireless communications space. To accomplish this, the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) has identified a Test Technology Area (TTA) Spectrum Efficient Technology (SET) that targets methodologies to more efficiently and effectively utilize this wireless test asset. The SET team has broken down the problem space into three distinct domains; wireless technologies, telemetry networking, and spectrum management. The idea therein is to maximize efficiency within the legacy use of the RF spectrum, while improving the utilization of this constrained resource with technology investment. Much of this work requires leveraging commercial technologies/trends and applying these technologies to the dynamic test environment problem space.