Wireless Networking in TV White Spaces: System Designs and Economic Models

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Department of Computer Science and Engineering


PhD Thesis Defence


Title: "Wireless Networking in TV White Spaces: System Designs and 
Economic Models"

By

Mr. Xiaojun FENG


Abstract

With the transition from analog to digital television broadcasts, a 
substantial amount of TV channels become available for unlicensed access, 
which brings great opportunities but also introduces new challenges. In 
this thesis, we identify four key challenges in the wireless networking 
research in TV white spaces. We address these challenges from two aspects, 
i.e system design and economic model. By designing and implementing new 
system architectures, we demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of TV 
spectrum access. By proposing and verifying new business models, we show 
the incentives of the usage of the new wireless communication paradigm.

We have three proposals in the direction of system design. First, we 
propose a database-based architecture which is compatible with the 
regulation on the TV database access with a proof-of-concept 
implementation. Second, we propose an enhancement to the current wireless 
medium access control (MAC) protocol leveraging the frequency diversity. 
Third, we consider the co-existence of systems operating under 
heterogeneous standards in TV white spaces and propose a busytone-based 
approach. In the economic model aspects, we study three problems. First, 
we consider the procedure of TV channel redistribution and model it as a 
double auction. We propose a truthful auction mechanism considering 
heterogeneous propagation properties of the TV spectrum. Second, we 
consider a hybrid pricing model for the spectrum redistribution problem 
and propose a frameworks consisting of both long-term and short-term 
pricing duration. Third, we study the pricing problem for TV white space 
database operators and propose a novel scheme for the operators to manage 
their costs and make profits. The above studies demonstrate that with 
appropriate system designs and business models, benefit of TV white spaces 
can be fully exploited.


Date:			Wednesday, 11 June 2014

Time:			2:00pm - 4:00pm

Venue:			Room 3494
 			Lifts 25/26

Chairman:		Prof. Zhihong Guo (CHEM)

Committee Members:	Prof. Bo Li (Supervisor)
 			Prof. Qian Zhang (Supervisor)
 			Prof. Lei Chen
 			Prof. Lin Gu
 			Prof. Rachel Zhang (IELM)
                        Prof. Jiannong Cao (Computing, PolyU)


**** ALL are Welcome ****