A Survey on Dynamic Spectrum Access for LTE-Advanced

Increasing utilization of LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) to meet the rapid growth in wireless bandwidth demand is an important focus for current research. Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) is a promising approach that can be utilized to improve bandwidth utilization in LTE-A systems and networks. The application of DSA is not limited to commercial use but can also be applied to provide access to other systems including public safety communication systems and device to device communications. This paper provides a general overview of DSA and a review of the recent research into the use of DSA to improve bandwidth utilization in LTE-A networks. DSA is a flexible technique that is being applied to different network technologies including cognitive radio, mobile cellular femtocells and wireless relay.