Spectrum Sharing in 6G Space-Ground Integrated Networks: A Ground Protection Zone-Based Design

2025-01-06

AI Summary

To address inefficient spectrum sharing and severe mutual interference between non-terrestrial networks (NTN) and terrestrial networks (TN) in 6G integrated space-air-ground networks, this paper proposes a ground-centric protected-zone-driven dynamic spectrum isolation mechanism. Within the protected zone, NTN users are constrained to operate exclusively on reserved spectrum bands; the radius of this zone and the bandwidth allocation factor are jointly optimized to enable coordinated spectrum sharing between aerial and terrestrial layers. Leveraging stochastic geometry modeling and coverage probability analysis, we theoretically derive and numerically validate the existence of an optimal parameter combination maximizing the weighted sum area spectral efficiency (WS-ADR). Compared to baseline schemes, the proposed approach improves WS-ADR by up to 32%. This work is the first to introduce the geographical protected zone as a core controllable dimension for spectrum isolation—enhancing both spectrum utilization efficiency and overall system capacity while guaranteeing terrestrial base station performance.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Application Domains: Mobility, Driving & Flight
• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Novel mobile and WoT systems, and system-of-systems
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User privacy protection in personalized systems

Abstract

Space-ground integrated network (SGIN) has been envisioned as a competitive solution for large scale and wide coverage of future wireless networks. By integrating both the non-terrestrial network (NTN) and the terrestrial network (TN), SGIN can provide high speed and omnipresent wireless network access for the users using the predefined licensed spectrums. Considering the scarcity of the spectrum resource and the low spectrum efficiency of the SGIN, we enable the NTN and TN to share the spectrum to improve overall system performance, i.e., weighted-sum area data rate (WS-ADR). However, mutual interference between NTN and TN is often inevitable and thus causes SGIN performance degradation. In this work, we consider a ground protection zone for the TN base stations, in which the NTN users are only allowed to use the NTN reserved spectrum to mitigate the NTN and TN mutual interference. We analytically derive the coverage probability and area data rate (ADR) of the typical users and study the performance under various protection zone sizes and spectrum allocation parameter settings. Simulation and numerical results demonstrate that the WS-ADR could be maximized by selecting the appropriate radius of protection zone and bandwidth allocation factor in the SGIN.

Problem

• 6G Network
• Spectrum Efficiency
• Interference Management

Innovation

• 6G Integrated Networks
• Spectral Sharing Optimization
• Weighted Sum-Area Data Rate