DISA plans spectrum-sharing scheduling system
Connecting state and local government leaders
The Defense Information Systems Agency wants to manage spectrum usage scheduling as well as automated interference prevention, detection and resolution.
The Defense Information Systems Agency’s Defense Spectrum Organization is looking for help developing a spectrum scheduling system that will enhance the dynamic spectrum sharing for the Citizen Broadband Radio Service.
CBRS consists of 150 MHz in the 3.5 GHz band that accommodates both federal and non-federal users. An authorization framework features three tiers of users: incumbent users, such as military and satellite ground stations whose communications are protected against harmful interference from other users; priority-access licensees, who must not interfere with incumbent users; and general authorized users, which are unlicensed users who must not interfere with the other two tiers and who get no protection from other tiers or other general authorized users.
The new spectrum scheduling system, called TARDyS3, would replace a calendar-based portal that’s currently being maintained by a spectrum access administrator that reserves spectrum for systems that do not have permanent spectrum access.
According to a June 17 request for information, DISA also expects the scheduling system to:
- Prevent interference by integrating best practices and spectrum planning data to evaluate likelihood of interference. A user-facing website may show bulletins highlighting sources of potential interference planners should avoid, for example.
- Identify potential electromagnetic interference if preventative measures fail through reports from users, DOD radar systems and environmental sensor networks.
- Quickly resolve interference incidents through an automated negotiation service that exchanges relevant data between federal and non-federal systems and manages user interactions in case the automated negotiation services fail to resolve the interference.
- Accommodate military users who will input data at impact levels 5 and 6 and access schedules and interference analysis. Commercial users will need to access these same (or obfuscated versions of) schedules and interference analysis, but they will input data at impact level 2 in near-real-time. The different impact levels must be in constant synchronization.
DISA intends to use agile development and tap Air Force Cloud One and Platform One capabilities to provide a DevSecOps toolchain, development environment and operational environment.
An initial, minimum viable product for spectrum scheduling is expected within six months of award and a second MVP for spectrum interference prevention, detection and resolution within nine months of award, DISA said. It also wants comments on various acquisition approaches, including the use of an Other Transaction Authority for the prototype, Challenge Based Acquisition to understand industry capabilities and a reverse industry day.
Read the full request for information here.