Sustainable Spectrum Crowdsensing

Spectrum crowdsensing is a paradigm where participants upload their collected spectrum data to the cloud for extracting analytics. First movers like Microsoft Spectrum Observatory and Electrosense, though with support from leading industry, research, and government, still suffer from sustainability challenges. In this paper, we present Fiesta, a sustainable framework for spectrum crowdsensing. On the technology side, we use federated learning and blockchain to decentralize the data analysis computations. For individual participants, minimal invasion of privacy suppresses concerns regarding large-scale adoption. From organizations’ perspectives, using blockchain avoids single point of failure and enhances the robustness of the entire system against malicious attacks. On the policy side, we propose a reward quantification mechanism to motivate engagement. Potential funding sources to ensure ongoing sustainability are also discussed. We have demonstrated Fiesta through simulation testbeds and real-world deployments with two demo tasks. Results show that Fiesta, as a decentralized framework, can preserve user privacy, enhance system robustness, maintain data fidelity compared with traditional methods, and fairly reward participants. We believe Fiesta is a stepping stone for the future spectrum crowdsensing paradigm.