Spectrum Sharing of Wi-Fi and DSRC In The 5.9 GHz Band

Given the likely government mandate, every new vehicle in the near future is expected to have the capability of "talking" to each other. DSRC is the primary technology that has been developed to implement this capability. Via DSRC technology, vehicles are able to periodically share their status information with other nearby traffic participants, thereby improving situational awareness among all traffic participants. Although much prior work has demonstrated that DSRC technology is adequate to support safety message exchanges, several challenges remain, among which the coexistence of legacy wireless technologies, such as Wi-Fi, and DSRC in the 5.9 GHz band is actively discussed in both the U.S. and Europe. Compared to conventional spectrum sharing scenarios, such as unlicensed devices sharing TV whitespaces, the safety-critical nature of DSRC transmissions places stricter requirements on the effectiveness of spectrum sharing mechanisms. As part of my thesis, I conduct such an analysis by identifying fundamental challenges of sharing the 5.9 GHz band between DSRC and Wi-Fi, providing guidance on challenging scenarios where Wi-Fi devices are not able to provide adequate protection to DSRC devices, and evaluating the performance of two recently proposed spectrum sharing mechanisms, Detect&Vacate and Detect&Mitigate, under these challenging scenarios.