DARPA’s latest Grand Challenge aims to overcome the looming problem of spectrum scarcity. While the Internet of Things and smart cities continue to grow every day, the electromagnetic spectrum remains the same. So, DARPA is asking engineers to work together to find better ways to use the frequencies that are available. As the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, DARPA is especially focused on making sure that the military operations are able to access the wireless spectrum for communicating and executing missions. However, the technology that will be developed as part of the challenge would likely be just as useful for civilians.
DARPA’s Spectrum Collaboration Challenge is a competition to develop radios with advanced machine-learning capabilities that can collectively develop strategies that optimize use of the wireless spectrum in ways not possible with today’s intrinsically inefficient static allocation approaches.
To facilitate the research that will be required for the challenge, DARPA is building a gigantic wireless testbed, nicknamed the “Colosseum.” It will allow researchers to remotely conduct large-scale experiments with intelligent radio systems in a realistic RF-environment that simulates the real-world. “The current practice of assigning fixed frequencies for various uses irrespective of actual, moment-to-moment demand is simply too inefficient to keep up with actual demand and threatens to undermine wireless reliability,” said William Chappell, director of DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office.
