Institute for Telecommunication Sciences / About ITS / Awards / 2014 Gold Medal for Scientific/Engineering Achievement

2014 Gold Medal for Scientific/Engineering Achievement

Frank Sanders, Robert Achatz, John Carroll, Michael Cotton, Roger Dalke, and Geoffrey Sanders of ITS, along with Robert Sole of NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management, were honored with a Department of Commerce (DoC) Gold Medal Award for rapidly developing a creative, innovative new method to perform electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) studies to support, through critical technical analysis, DoC efforts to increase federal/commercial sharing to make additional spectrum available for wireless commercial broadband services to promote innovation and economic development. A study performed using this new method informed new rules for spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band. Rapid publication of the method and results enables reuse for rapid EMC studies in other bands being considered for sharing. The results and the new methodology were published in a highly impactful series of publicly available NTIA Reports (TR-14-499, TR-14-500, TR-14-506, TR-14-507, TR-15-510 and TR-15-512) which were used to develop the FCC’s rules for new spectrum sharing at 3.5 GHz. The group's work has also been used by other Federal agencies that will have to share the band and by Industry that will build new systems (e.g. LTE) to operate in the band. The availability of this new method will significantly advance the development of new spectrum sharing to facilitate continued economic growth and innovation by making more spectrum available for new commercial uses while allowing existing, incumbent federal spectrum operations to continue.