Original title: From Open RAN to Open Spectrum: A Programmable, Intelligent Architecture for Multi-Service Spectrum Coexistence
Michele Polese, Minh Dat Nguyen, Paolo Testolina, Tommaso Melodia · September 2026
Wireless services like cell phones, radar, and GPS must share radio waves without jamming each other. Today, sharing systems only divide up the radio frequencies. This ignores the real hardware and processing pipelines that every service needs. The researchers created a design called Open Spectrum to fix this problem. Instead of only splitting airwaves, Open Spectrum pools radio equipment, computer hardware, and frequencies together. A central software manager called a Spectrum Intelligent Controller coordinates this shared pool. It uses plug-and-play programs called Spectrum Applications and digital twins, which are computerized virtual models of the real world, to predict radio interference. It also handles tenant onboarding, incentives, and conflict resolution across different services. The researchers tested their system using simulations of an urban digital twin and ray tracing. They found that sharing infrastructure and services provides clear performance incentives, expands spectrum access, and boosts signal quality by up to 12 dB.
Imagine a community kitchen where each chef brings their own stove and pots to cook separate meals. They cannot share because each stove is only for one chef, so the kitchen is crowded and many stoves sit idle while others wait. Here, the Open Spectrum architecture treats all stoves, pots, and ingredients as a common pool managed by a central chef who assigns them on demand. This allows chefs for different cuisines to use the same equipment at different times, reducing wait and improving meal quality.
Currently, different wireless services like cellular, radar, and GPS compete for the same radio spectrum, leading to inefficiency and interference. This work proposes an architecture that lets them share not just spectrum but also the underlying radio equipment, improving overall performance. In simulations, signal quality improved by up to 12 dB, which could mean more reliable connections and better use of limited spectrum.
The abstract doesn't explicitly list limitations, but it only presents results from simulations using a specific urban digital twin and ray tracing, not from real-world deployments. This suggests the need for further validation. Additionally, the abstract does not address potential overhead of the controller, security concerns, or regulatory challenges in such a shared architecture.
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From Open RAN to Open Spectrum: A Programmable, Intelligent Architecture for Multi-Service Spectrum Coexistence — Michele Polese, Minh Dat Nguyen, Paolo Testolina et al.
Abstract licence: CC0
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.