Spectrum sensing infrastructure support for IEEE 1900.6b sensing-assisted spectrum databases

Spectrum databases are increasingly being used, particularly in spectrum sharing mechanisms, but also in realms such as network optimization, novel licensing regimes, and regulatory monitoring, among others. Spectrum databases are often far more effective, reactive, or sometimes even are required to operate, in conjunction with spectrum sensing - especially if their operation requires automation. Given such observations, this paper presents an update on the IEEE 1900.6b standards work on spectrum sensing to support such databases. Specifically, this paper provides an overview of IEEE 1900.6 and the current work towards 1900.6b, pinpointing the latest updates and thoughts on aspects of the system model incorporating spectrum databases, as well as use cases for the standard. It particularly concentrates on some of the more recent developments and challenges that IEEE 1900.6 is addressing for 1900.6b, such as sharing of sensing infrastructures with different client constraints (noting that spectrum databases - the clients - may have very different requirements in terms of measures such as accuracy and reliability), flexibility in the definition of sensing infrastructures, and security requirements, among many others. This paper finishes by presenting some detail on an experimental set-up for an upcoming trial of the IEEE 1900.6 standard as amended with IEEE 1900.6b capabilities, supporting the operation of a spectrum database as a key European showcase.