Project ORCA successfully ended in October 2015
In October 2015, the NATO SfP – 984409 ORCA project (“Optimization and Rational Use of Wireless Communication Bands”) ended very successfully after the submission of the final report by the UKIM partner and its full acceptance by the NATO SfP representatives.
The general scientific objective of the Project was to extensively evaluate the spectrum utilization and the spectrum availability in order to study the potentials for its re-usage by novel and innovative wireless services. In order to obtain relevance to the NATO’s policy towards defense against terrorism and countering other threats to security, the ORCA project used the obtained results towards conducting a feasibility analysis of high performance, secure and “easy to use” secondary system platform able to automatically utilize the detected chunks of unused spectrum for providing services in emergency situation communications, as well as other security threatened situations.
Furthermore, the the ORCA project successfully fulfilled many specific measurable objectives such as:
- Analysis and specification of relevant system scenarios that govern secondary spectrum access in security and emergency situations
- Development of precise measurement methodology for available spectrum assessment in TV and radar bands, including the recently released Digital Dividend 1 band
- Definition and evaluation of calculation methods for vacant spectrum estimation and modeling
- Comparison of measured and calculated available spectrum results and accurate estimation of available spectrum in TV and radar bands for secondary re-usage
- Analysis of advanced methods for interference monitoring and detection of potential intruders in TV and radar bands
- Providing efficient security mechanisms as a necessary background for development of future spectrum sharing models among different entities
- Proposing novel business models and innovative wireless services that exploit the vacancies in the TV and radar bands
- Execution of real-time experiments in laboratory premises
- Fostering the analogue-to-digital transformation of the TV broadcasting systems in the project partner countries and providing increased inter-regional cooperation
- Contribution to the national regulations of spectrum usage by close cooperation and consultancies with the end-user, and implementation of the findings in real life spectrum exploitation
- Clear and distinctive field results for the end-user that will foster its future activities towards more flexible spectrum allocation policies
All research activities within the project were conducted with a close collaboration among the project partners and the end-user (the national regulatory agency, AEC, in Macedonia) in order to obtain credible project results.
After the period of almost 3 years (Feb. 2013 – Oct. 2015), the project resulted in a very comprehensive methodologies for spectrum evaluation and measurement, as well as broad analysis, implementation and laboratory tests of appropriate detection schemes, interference estimation and intruder detection schemes. Best Demo Award on DYSpan 2015 capped the results obtained within the ORCA project. The achieved expertize and purchased equipment enable opening of an accredited laboratory for spectrum measurements at UKIM’s premises.
 |
ORCA meeting at FABULOUS 2015, Ohrid, Macedonia |
More info under the official website of the ORCA project.