Radio frequency spectrum is a scarce and critical natural resource that is utilized for
many services including surveillance, navigation, communication, and broadcast-
ing. Recent years have seen tremendous growth in the use of spectrum especially by
commercial cellular operators. Ubiquitous use of smartphones and tablets is one
of the reasons behind an all-time high utilization of spectrum. As a result, cellular
operators are experiencing a shortage of radio spectrum to meet bandwidth
demands of users. On the other hand, spectrum measurements have shown that
much spectrum not held by cellular operators is underutilized even in dense urban
areas. This has motivated shared access to spectrum by secondary systems with no
or minimal impact on incumbent systems. Spectrum sharing is a promising
approach to solve the problem of spectrum congestion as it allows cellular operators
access to more spectrum in order to satisfy the ever-growing bandwidth demands of
commercial users.
