CORE project final report

Cognitive Radio Trial Environment (CORE) project was a joint research project between VTT, University of Oulu and Centria University of Applied Sciences, funded by Tekes, Elektrobit, EXFO, Finnish Defence Forces, Nokia Siemens Networks, PehuTec, PPO Yhtiöt, and Renesas Mobile Europe. This report summarised VTT's research in the CORE project. The future mobile telecommunication market is expected to experience strong growth in the next decade leading to increasing spectrum demand for mobile communication systems. As the availability of new spectrum for mobile communications is challenged by the unavailability of unallocated feasible spectrum bands, efficient spectrum sharing techniques and network resource usage optimisation techniques using cognitive radio system (CRS) capabilities are a promising approach to respond to the growing demand. The CORE project has developed a trial environment for showcasing and development of CRS technologies for mobile communication systems to improve their resource use. The project has developed cognitive decision making techniques to optimise the resource use of future networks and verified their performances. The project has analysed the status of the current spectrum occupancy in Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band. Business aspects have been taken into account by developing scenarios and business models for the future CRS business ecosystem by arranging several business workshops. The project has contributed to the international spectrum regulatory framework to promote the introduction of CRS techniques by participating in International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication (ITU-R) sector in their work on cognitive radio systems (CRS). The project has prepared several spectrum sharing related input contributions to ITU-R WP5A including chairmanship of CRS sub-working group. International cooperation has also been carried out in COST Action IC0905 TERRA forum, and by giving several invited talks and a research visit.