A Survey of the DVB-T Spectrum: Opportunities for Cognitive Mobile Users

Cognitive radio (CR) systems are designed to utilize the available radio spectrum in an efficient and intelligent manner. Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-T) frequency bands are one of the future candidates for cognitive radio applications especially because after digital television transition the TV white spaces (TVWS) became available for radio communication. This paper deals with the survey of the DVB-T spectrum; wideband measurements were performed on mobile platform in order to study the variation of the radio signal power in city area aboard a moving vehicle. The measurement environment was a densely built-in region where the proper DVB-T receiving was guaranteed by three TV transmitters, utilizing three central channel frequencies using 610, 746, and 770 MHz. In our paper the methods, the applied antenna, and measurement devices will be presented together with simulated and measured fading statistics. The final result is an estimation of the cognitive DVB-T spectrum utilization opportunity; furthermore a scenario is also proposed for secondary channel usage.