TV Whitespace: technical challenges, regulatory issues, and a new testbed in Wilmington

TV whitespace refers to use of locally free television broadcast channels for data communications. It is the most prominent current example of Cognitive Radio, which is the exploitation of environmental awareness by wireless communications systems. The Federal Communications Commission issued a ruling in November 2008 allowing unlicensed TV whitespace devices. The first end-user trial of a TV whitespace system lit up in Claudville, VA in October 2009. Use of TV whitespace promises to reduce the cost and increase the coverage of several types of applications. These include broadband Internet access in underserved rural areas, and distributed sensing and control systems such as those for smart electric grids and environmental management.

John Chapin

Scientist and consultant, MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics - TV Band Service LLC on December 14, 2009 at 8:00 AM in Engineering Building II, Room 1230

John Chapin is a visiting scientist in the Claude E. Shannon Communication and Network Group at the Research Laboratory of Electronics of MIT, and a consultant to TV Band Service LLC. He spent 9 years in technical leadership roles at Vanu, Inc., a provider of SDR based cellular radio access networks. His work there on SDR and cognitive radio earned multiple awards including IEEE DYSPAN best paper, SDR Forum best paper, and SDR Forum Industry Achievement Award. Prior to Vanu he was on the faculty of the EECS department of MIT, where his research earned the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). He served as chairman of the SDR Forum from 2007 to 2009. He earned the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1997.

Interdisciplinary Distinguished Seminar Series

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering hosts a regularly scheduled seminar series with preeminent and leading reseachers in the US and the world, to help promote North Carolina as a center of innovation and knowledge and to ensure safeguarding its place of leading research.