Spectral reuse transceiver-based aggregation of disjoint, relatively narrow bandwidth (voice) channel segments of radio spectrum for wideband RF communication applications
A bandwidth usage control methodology uses the clear channel detection and frequency agile functionality of a spectral reuse transceiver to effectively ‘aggregate’ disjoint user channels into an overall bandwidth, the spectral extent of which is at least sufficient to meet a high bandwidth requirement (such as, but not limited to the transmission of data/video), that cannot be realized by a conventional, single channel radio.
1. A method of conducting radio frequency (RF) communications comprising the steps of:
(a) aggregating a plurality of licensed, differing bandwidth, disjoint RF user channels into an overall RF bandwidth of said disjoint RF user channels, and sub-dividing said overall RF bandwidth into a plurality of RF sub-channels, each having a prescribed bandwidth that is no greater than the bandwidth of each of said licensed, differing bandwidth, disjoint RF user channels;
(b) identifying clear RF sub-channels within said overall RF bandwidth as those in which the level of RF energy is below a predetermined threshold;
(c) aggregating at least some of said clear sub-channels into a plurality of subsets having an aggregated RF bandwidth such that no two subsets have an identical aggregated RF bandwidth; and
(d) controllably hopping among selected ones of said subsets and transmitting a wideband information signal by way of successively hopped ones of said subsets, said wideband information signal having an effective data rate that is greater than the bandwidth of each of said RF user channels comprising said subset.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein said disjoint RF user channels lie in one or more public service bands.
3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein step (d) comprises transmitting an image-representative communication signal by way of said successively hopped ones of said subsets.
4. A method of conducting radio frequency (RF) communications across a network comprising the steps of:
(a) selecting a plurality of RF channels;
(b) aggregating said selected channels into an overall RF bandwidth;
(c) subdividing said aggregated RF channels into a plurality of sub-channels;
(d) identifying clear sub-channels within said plurality of sub-channels as those in which the level of detectible RF energy is below a predetermined threshold;
(e) aggregating at least some of said clear sub-channels into a plurality of subsets such that each subset comprises a nonidentical aggregated RF bandwidth;
(f) providing subset information to each member of said network sufficient to cause each member to transmit and receive using the same clear sub-channels;
(g) transmitting on said clear sub-channels comprising one of said subsets;
(h) continuing to transmit while hopping from one subset to another subset within said plurality of subsets.
5. The method claimed in claim 4 wherein said plurality of RF channels is selected from bandwidth segments that have been allocated to one or more primary users.