The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology is hosting a public workshop on cognitive radio technologies at the FCC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on May 19, 2003 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EDT. The workshop will be broadcast live on the FCC's Audio/Video Events page at http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio.
Cognitive radio technologies give radios the ability to adapt to changes in the operating environment. They can be used to modify antenna patterns, modulation type, power levels and frequency to maximize spectrum efficiency through frequency sharing. Cognitive radio technologies allow a communications system to share a pool of frequencies used by other systems by recognizing what frequencies are in use and avoiding them while optimizing transmission parameters on frequencies it is using to increase reliability and reduce interference.
Although use so far has been limited to military applications such as the HF radio system ALE (Automatic Link Establishment--see http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/pub/oa-rpt/hf-ale/handbook/), the FCC is expected to require use of this technology in new communications systems. Faced with reductions in broadcast auxiliary spectrum, broadcasters may have to utilize some form of cognitive radio technology to maximize use of scare microwave spectrum.
