SII-Center: SpectrumX – An NSF Spectrum Innovation Center

The worldwide growth of wireless communication, navigation, and telemetry has provided immense societal benefits including mobile broadband data, Internet of Things, mobile healthcare, and intelligent transportation systems. This award is a grant to establish a Spectrum Innovation Initiative: National Center for Wireless Spectrum Research (SII-Center) to ensure United States leadership in future wireless technologies, systems, and applications in science and engineering through the efficient use and sharing of the radio spectrum.

An SII-Center will promote transformative use and management of the electromagnetic spectrum, charting a trajectory to ensure United States leadership in future wireless technologies, systems, and applications in science and engineering through the efficient use and sharing of the radio spectrum. An SII-Center will also educate and develop an agile workforce needed to support industries of the future which rely heavily on wireless technologies.

This award funds the establishment of the first national center for wireless spectrum research, SpectrumX. The vision for SpectrumX is to be an inclusive multidisciplinary and increasingly interdisciplinary center that applies convergence research and team science to promote coexistence among disparate use cases in the radio spectrum, particularly including “public good” use cases for science and defense.

In particular, SpectrumX will pursue its initial research strategy in scientific receiver hardware with interference measurement and mitigation capabilities; instrumentation of the radio spectrum in terms of advanced sensing networks; collecting and sharing accurate regulatory, usage, and economic data; flexible use rights that align incentives with efficient outcomes; and distributed, data-rich, and cloud-ready system designs for more efficient spectrum management and utilization. The project team is led by the University of Notre Dame, bringing together broad and synergistic research capabilities from a team of 41 founding researchers and staff from 27 universities, including 14 minority-serving or majority non-white institutions, and partnerships across industry, government, and academia.

The Center will be an information and innovation hub connecting stakeholders. SpectrumX has a Broadening Participation plan aimed to increase awareness of cultural competence for all center participants to ensure that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are woven into the core of the Center’s values and culture. SpectrumX will develop spectrum-related curriculum for Grade 6 through master’s students and has an Education and Workforce Development Plan to offer flexible pathways for researchers and students from diverse backgrounds, disciplines, and levels of maturity to engage in spectrum innovation.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.