Horizon Prize – Collaborative Spectrum Sharing

Topic description

Scope:

The Horizon Prize for collaborative spectrum sharing is a €500 000 challenge prize. It will be awarded to an innovative and disruptive approach which will enable a significant increase in spectrum sharing and re-use, beyond the currently applicable spectrum sharing methods and centralised techniques. The winning solution should be a significant step forward from current technologies and solutions in terms of shared spectrum usage metrics and will have to prove its economic viability. The feasibility of the approach will have to be demonstrated through clear experimental results.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives are:

•           To tackle the expected capacity crunch of wireless networks faced with booming traffic and usages;

•           To provide innovative yet implementable solutions enabling a significant efficiency improvement in the usage of scarce spectrum resources;

•           To reward excellence in demonstrating one or several innovative methods focusing on the provision of empowerment of local user communities with decentralised spectrum management capabilities;

•           To address the lack of demonstrated system capabilities of disruptive spectrum access and sharing methods, which go beyond the traditional cellular evolution and database, based sharing methods;

•           To foster experimental R&D and early proof-of-concept development to encourage innovation, business, and regulation in the domain of collaborative sharing of spectrum.

EXPECTED RESULTS

This prize will lead to a significant amount of research and potentially demonstrated capabilities of disruptive spectrum access and sharing methods, which go beyond the traditional cellular evolution and centralised sharing approaches.

It will contribute to the development of low cost, energy efficient systems solutions that will increase the efficient use of spectrum resources for enabling new services and driving the development of wireless systems.

It will also help overcoming the heterogeneous nature of spectrum access implementation in Europe. It will demonstrate societal and economic benefits for Europe with a clear innovation potential, business opportunities, and where applicable, required modernisation of European regulation in the domain of collaborative sharing of spectrum.