A unified model for interference analysis in unlicensed frequency bands

This paper presents a unified framework for interference characterizations and analysis in the unlicensed frequency bands and the like, where many narrowband heterogeneous terminals coexist and share a common wideband channel using less-restrictive transmission etiquettes. Here, each transmitter/receiver pair makes his own decision regarding when to access the channel without any direct coordination with the other users. This is usually based on the local channel conditions at the receiver or/and the transmitter. Due to the nature of the wireless channel, communication in such environments is usually prone to arbitrary partial-band interference which can be generated anywhere in the space and frequency domains. In this paper, a new spatial-spectral interference model is introduced, where interferers can be of any power spectral density and are distributed according to a Poisson process in space and frequency domains. This basic model is extended to include the effects of channelization, where users are allowed only to transmit at a preassigned set of discrete frequencies. This is further extended to include also the effects of spectral-spatial guard zones, where the interferers can not exist in a given band nearby the victim receiver. Based on this multidimensional spatial-spectral Poisson model and the accurate conditional Gaussian analysis, explicit expressions are derived for average error rates of different communication systems.