SOFTWAREDEFINEDRADIO(SDR)TECHNOLOGY

Telecommunications have been in constant evolution during past decades. Conventional radio
architectures are limited to narrow operating regions and fails to adapt with changing technology. Higher
data rate demands and better Quality of Service requirements have resulted in the development of a
number of wireless communication standards. Each standard has its own baseband and RF parameters
and each requires a different hardware platform. Software Defined Radio (SDR) unites all these current
as well as future wireless standards on a single hardware platform where all the baseband processing is
performed in digital domain. In this new model, one moves to the software the task to set radio
behaviour, where the functional modules of a radio system are implemented in software executing on a
programmable processor, leaving to hardware only the implementation of RF frontend. Thus, the radio
is no longer static, defined by their circuits and becomes a dynamic element, which may change their
operating characteristics, such as bandwidth, modulation, coding rate, even modified during runtime
according to software configuration, thereby enabling networked devices to easily adapt to user
preferences and the operating environment. Thus a radio downloads the relevant software on its air
interfaceandexecutesitonreconfigurablegeneralpurposehardware.
Witnessing the convergence of two dynamically developing technological forces digital radio
and realtime downloadable software this technology when perfected will result in the advent of the
true softwarereconfigurable universal handset for all radio applications, profoundly impacting not only
technology but also industry structures. Moreover, SDR enables the implementation of Cognitive Radio
(CR) which is about making a radio intelligent with the help of sensors. A conventional radio when
operating in a particular communications mode always follows the same procedure and either succeeds
or fails at a given task. A cognitive radio, by contrast, can have a knowledgedriven
differentialresponse capability that is, it can use knowledge of radio technology and policy,
representations of the goals, and other contextual parameters to reason about a failed attempt to satisfy
a goal and to identify alternative actions that would achieve the goal. Based on the information collected
through sensors, a radio adapts its physical layer parameters to efficiently make use of the radio
resources. SDR also finds wide use in military applications and is being researched by defence research
wingsacrosstheglobe.
REFERENCES
[1] Vergari, F. SoftwareDefined Radio: Finding Its Use in Public Safety Vehicular Technology
Magazine,IEEE2013
[2] Hussain, S. From software defined radio to cognitive radio Emerging Technologies (ICET),
2012InternationalConference.
[3] Luiz Garcia Reis, A. Barros, A.F. Gusso Lenzi, K. Pedroso Meloni, L.G. Barbin, S.E.
IntroductiontotheSoftwaredefinedRadioApproachLatinAmericaTransactions,IEEE2012