Leuven, Belgium – June 4, 2009 – IMEC has demonstrated spectrum sensing functions, using an experimental setup including its integrated reconfigurable radio platform. The setup senses information on spectrum occupancy from UMTS and WLAN signals in specific bands. It retrieves information on the frequency and bandwidth, with estimates for power and noise. The system includes IMEC’s advanced ASICs implementing a programmable baseband platform and a flexible RF transceiver front-end. This transceiver offers the possibility to scan from 100MHz to 6GHz.
IMEC’s achievement comes in time to profit from the recent worldwide switch from analogue to digital terrestrial TV. This switch frees a large portion of valuable spectrum, and is therefore often named the digital dividend. Opportunistic wireless devices will be able to operate in these white spaces, the former TV broadcast channels. Such TV Band Devices (TVBD) will include the ability to detect the primary users of frequency bands, thus allowing the secondary use of the band without interfering with the primary users.
A key driver for the future success of small and portable TVBDs will be an efficient and low-power sensing technology. IMEC is now working to further develop a flexible, cost-friendly, and energy-efficient engine for spectrum sensing.
