The purpose of the SCOS system is to characterize and assess the occupancy of spectrum resource towards supporting its more efficient and effective use. The intent of the SCOS system is to create a high-level architecture to support different spectrum sensing technologies and deployments, to enable specialization and provide incentive, to promote broad adoption of sensing technologies and subsequent economies of scale, and to ultimately achieve broader availability and usage of sensing information from different sources. This will enable clients to acquire and use spectrum sensing information from a multiplicity of predefined independent systems to serve their goals. Various national regulators and government authorities are developing regulatory and policy frameworks to allow cooperative spectrum sharing approaches in order to optimize spectrum utilization. There is emphasis on greater spectrum efficiencies, spectrum sharing and spectrum utilization, which require systems that can provide spectrum occupancy at a particular location and at a particular time. More broadly, the spectrum characterization and occupancy sensing (SCOS) system has many applications, which include the following: a) Policy and planning b) Radio planning, management, and engineering c) Regulatory enforcement where systems can detect (RF incursion), locate (source), classify (by type and severity), resolve/remediate d) Research and technology development