SII-NRDZ: MITRE NRDZ-as-a-Service

Many activities of modern society and government depend on use of the electromagnetic (radio-frequency) spectrum. Future growth in these activities requires increased use of dynamic spectrum sharing – ways to enable diverse spectrum users to safely operate closer together in space or frequency or to trade spectrum access more rapidly than is possible with traditional spectrum management approaches. The National Science Foundation National Radio Dynamic Zones (SII-NRDZ) program seeks to advance the use of dynamic spectrum sharing through conducting extended field trials of new sharing approaches. The SII-NRDZ program intends to make a future award called the Engineering and Execution Lead (SII-NRDZ-EEL). The SII-NRDZ-EEL will provide the professional engineering and management required for success of SII-NRDZ program field trials. In this project, the MITRE corporation conducts the initial planning, technical study, regulatory study, and program and outreach interactions needed to prepare a high-quality proposal to serve as the SII-NRDZ-EEL. If selected as the SII-NRDZ-EEL, the MITRE Corporation envisions building infrastructure as a service that will accelerate the pace of research and field trials in spectrum sharing. This infrastructure is called “NRDZ-as-a-Service” (NaaS). NaaS will serve as the platform for maturing spectrum-sharing researchers’ solutions, for transitioning implementations from laboratory testing to large-scale field trials, and for rapidly conducting repeatable experiments at multiple field trial sites. NaaS will provide researchers the capability to construct custom dynamic spectrum sharing approaches that interact with spectrum users through standard interfaces. In the technical study portion of this project, MITRE performs initial design of NaaS services and interfaces, prototypes a representative NaaS to demonstrate its capability, and investigates architectural questions relevant for future spectrum sharing deployments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.