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INTRODUCTION

An SDR device allows users to change transmitter and receiver characteristics

such as modulation type, wideband and narrowband operations, radiated power, and

air interfaces by making software changes without any hardware alternation.

Traditional LMR devices are based on specialized hardware such as transistors and

integrated circuits. In more modern LMR radios, digital signal processor (DSP) chips

are used for analog- to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion of the radio

transmissions. A DSP chip is a real-time digital signal processor that can alter its

functionality by executing different software algorithms.

Recent advances in DSP chip design and fabrication will allow for more

advanced DSP chips able to support multiple functions. This is due to continuous

improvement in manufacturing techniques for creating chip components at extremely

small sizes (fractions of a micron), therefore producing DSP chips with more built-in

functionality. SDR devices will take advantage of these advanced DSP chips to have

multiple functionalities such as supporting multiple access technologies (e.g., operate

on different radio technologies). SDR devices are envisioned to interoperate with

existing and evolving LMR systems by switching modes and also are capable of

operating in multiple public safety frequency bands.


Ideal concept

The ideal receiver scheme would be to attach an analog-to-digital converter to

an antenna. A digital signal processor would read the converter, and then its software

would transform the stream of data from the converter to any other form the

application requires.

An ideal transmitter would be similar. A digital signal processor would generate

a stream of numbers. These would be sent to a digital-to-analog converter connected

to a radio antenna.

The ideal scheme is, due to the actual technology progress limits, not completely

realizable, however. The main problem in both directions is the difficulty of

conversion between the digital and the analog domains at a high enough rate and a

high enough accuracy at the same time, and without relying upon physical processes

like interference and electromagnetic resonance for assistance.

Receiver architecture

Most receivers utilize a variable-frequency oscillator, mixer, and filter to tune

the desired signal to a common intermediate frequency or baseband, where it is then

sampled by the analog-to-digital converter. However, in some applications it is not

necessary to tune the signal to an intermediate frequency and the radio frequency

signal is directly sampled by the analog-to-digital converter (after amplification).

Real analog-to-digital converters lack the discrimination to pick up sub- microvolt,


nano-watt radio signals. Therefore a low-noise amplifier must precede the conversion

step and this device introduces its own problems. For example if spurious signals are

present , these compete with the desired signals within the amplifier's dynamic range.

They may introduce distortion in the desired signals, or may block them completely.

The standard solution is to put band-pass filters between the antenna and the

amplifier, but these reduce the radio's flexibility – which some see as the whole point

of a software radio. Real software radios often have two or three analog "channels"

that are switched in and out. These contain matched, amplifiers and sometimes a

mixer.
HISTORY

The term "Software Defined Radio" was coined in 1991 by Joseph Mitola,

who published the first paper on the topic in 1992. Though the concept was first

proposed in 1991, software-defined radios have their origins in the defense sector

since the late 1970s in both the U.S. and Europe. One of the first public software

radio initiatives was a U.S. military project named Speakeasy. The primary goal of

the Speakeasy project was to use programmable processing to emulate more than 10

existing military radios, operating in frequency bands between 2 and 2000 MHz.

Further, another design goal was to be able to easily incorporate new coding and

modulation standards in the future, so that military communications can keep pace

with advances in coding and modulation techniques.


CURRENT USAGE

Joint Tactical Radio System

The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) is a program of the US military to

produce radios that provide flexible and interoperable communications. Examples of

radio terminals that require support include hand-held, vehicular, airborne and

dismounted radios, as well as base-stations (fixed and maritime). This goal is

achieved through the use of SDR systems based on an internationally endorsed open

Software Communications Architecture (SCA). This standard uses CORBA on

POSIX operating systems to coordinate various software modules.

The program is providing a flexible new approach to meet diverse war fighter

communications needs through software programmable radio technology. All

functionality and expandability is built upon the SCA. The SCA, despite its military

origin, is under evaluation by commercial radio vendors for applicability in their

domains. The adoption of general purpose SDR frameworks outside of military,

intelligence, experimental and amateur uses, however, is inherently retarded by the

fact that civilian users can more easily settle with a fixed architecture, optimized for a

specific function, and as such more economical in mass market applications. Still,
software defined radio's inherent flexibility can yield substantial benefits in the

longer run, once the fixed costs of implementing it have gone down enough to

overtake the cost of iterated redesign of purpose built systems. This then explains the

increasing commercial interest in the technology. SCA-based infrastructure software

and rapid development tools for SDR education and research are provided by the

Open Source SCA Implementation - Embedded (OSSIE) project.

Amateur or home use

A typical amateur software radio uses a direct conversion receiver. Unlike

direct conversion receivers of the more distant past, the mixer technologies used are

based on the quadrature sampling detector and the quadrature sampling exciter.

The receiver performance of this line of SDRs is directly related to the

dynamic range of the analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) utilized. Radio frequency

signals are down converted to the audio frequency band, which is sampled by a high

performance audio frequency ADC. First generation SDRs used a PC sound card to

provide ADC functionality. The newer software defined radios use embedded high

performance ADCs that provide higher dynamic range and are more resistant to noise

and RF interference.
A fast PC performs the digital signal processing (DSP) operations using

software (usually amateur-written) specific for the radio hardware. In the case of Flex

Radio Systems Inc., and several other software radio efforts (principally amateur

radio), the actual code is based on the open source SDR library DttSP. One such

example is the Flex Radio Systems Power SDR software that is used by various SDR

manufacturers.

The SDR software performs all of the demodulation, filtering (both radio

frequency and audio frequency), and signal enhancement (equalization and binaural

presentation). Uses include every common amateur modulation: Morse code, single

sideband modulation, frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, and a variety of

digital modes such as radio teletype, slow-scan television, and packet radio[10].

Amateurs also experiment with new modulation methods: for instance, the DREAM

open-source project decodes the COFDM technique used by Digital Radio Mondiale.

More recently, the GNU Radio using primarily the Universal Software Radio

Peripheral (USRP) uses a USB 2.0 interface, an FPGA, and a high- speed set of

analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, combined with reconfigurable free

software. Its sampling and synthesis bandwidth is a thousand times that of PC sound

cards, which enables wideband operation.

The HPSDR (High Performance Software Defined Radio) project uses a 16-bit

135MSPS analog-to-digital converter that provides performance over the range 0 to


55 MHz comparable to that of a conventional analogue HF radio. The receiver will

also operate in the VHF and UHF range using either mixer image or alias responses.

Interface to a PC is provided by a USB 2.0 interface. The project is modular and

comprises a backplane onto which other boards plug in. This allows experimentation

with new techniques and devices without the need to replace the entire set of boards.

An exciter provides 1/2W of RF over the same range or into the VHF and UHF range

using image or alias outputs.

Features

Following are the key features of SDR technology:

Reconfigurability: SDR allows co-existence of multiple software

modules implementing different standards on the same system allowing dynamic

configuration of the system by just selecting the appropriate software module to run.

This dynamic configuration is possible both in handsets as well as infrastructure

equipment. The wireless network infrastructure can reconfigure itself to subscriber's

handset type or the subscriber's handset can reconfigure itself to network type. SDR

technology facilitates implementation of future-proof, multi-service, multi-mode,

multi-band, multi-standard terminals and infrastructure equipment.


Ubiquitous Connectivity: SDR enables implementation of air interface standards

as software modules and multiple instances of such modules that implement different

standards can co-exist in infrastructure equipment and handsets. This helps in

realizing global roaming facility. If the terminal is incompatible with the network

technology in a particular region, an appropriate software module needs to be

installed onto the handset (possibly over-the-air) resulting in seamless network access

across various geographies. Further, if the handset used by the subscriber is a legacy

handset, the infrastructure equipment can use a software module implementing the

older standard to communicate with the handset.

Interoperability: SDR facilitates implementation of open architecture

radio systems. End-users can seamlessly use innovative third-party

applications on their handsets as in a PC system. This enhances the appeal and

utility of the handsets.


Architecture

This section gives a brief overview of a basic conventional digital radio system

and then explains how SDR technology can be used to implement radio functions in

software. It then explains the software architecture of SDR.

The various functional blocks in a generic digital radio transceiver

(transmitter/receiver) system is depicted in figure 1. The digital radio system consists

of three main functional blocks: RF section, IF section and baseband section. The RF

section consists of essentially analog hardware modules while IF and baseband

sections contain digital hardware modules.

Figure 1

The RF section (also called as RF front-end) is responsible for

transmitting/receiving the radio frequency (RF) signal from the antenna via a coupler
and converting the RF signal to an intermediate frequency (IF) signal. The RF front-

end on the receive path performs RF amplification and analog down conversion from

RF to IF. On the transmit path, RF front-end performs analog up conversion and RF

power amplification.

The ADC/DAC blocks perform analog-to-digital conversion (on receive path)

and digital-to-analog conversion (on transmit path), respectively. ADC/DAC blocks

interface between the analog and digital sections of the radio system. DDC/DUC

blocks perform digital-down-conversion (on receive path) and digital-up-conversion

respectively.

DUC/DDC blocks essentially perform modem operations, i.e., modulation of the

signal on transmit path and demodulation (also called digital tuning) of the signal on

receive path.

The baseband section performs baseband operations (connection setup, equalization,

frequency hopping, timing recovery, correlation) and also implements the link layer

protocol (layer 2 protocol in OSI protocol model).

The DDC/DUC and baseband processing operations require large computing power

and these modules are generally implemented using ASICs or stock DSPs.

Implementation of the digital sections using ASICs results in fixed-function digital

radio systems. If DSPs are used for baseband processing, a programmable digital

radio (PDR) system can be realized. In other words, in a PDR system baseband
operations and link layer protocols are implemented in software. The DDC/DUC

functionality in a PDR system is implemented using ASICs. The limitation of this

system is that any change made to the RF section of the system will impact the

DDC/DUC operations and will require non-trivial changes to be made in DDC/DUC

ASICs.

A software-defined radio (SDR) system is one in which the baseband processing as

well as DDC/DUC modules are programmable. Availability of smart antennas,

wideband RF front-end, wideband ADC/DAC technologies and ever increasing

processing capacity (MIPS) of DSPs and general-purpose microprocessors have

fostered the development of multi-band, multi-standard, multi-mode radio systems

using SDR technology. In an SDR system, the link-layer protocols and

modulation/demodulation operations are implemented in software.

If the programmability is further extended to the RF section (i.e., performing analog-

to-digital conversion and vice-versa right at the antenna) an ideal software radio

systems that support programmable RF bands can be implemented. However, the

current state-of-the-art ADC/DAC devices cannot support the digital bandwidth,

dynamic range and sampling rate required to implement this in a commercially viable

manner.
Figure 2

Figure 2 illustrates the architecture of software components in a typical SDR system.

The system uses a generic hardware platform with programmable modules (DSPs,

FPGAs, microprocessors) and analog RF modules. The operating environment

performs hardware resource management activities like allocation of hardware

resources to different applications, memory management, interrupt servicing and

providing a consistent interface to hardware modules for use by applications. In SDR

system, the software modules that implement link- layer protocols and

modulation/demodulation operations are called radio applications and these

applications provide link-layer services to higher layer communication protocols such

as WAP and TCP/IP.

SDR Within LMR Networks

A public safety agency’s ability to maintain seamless, reliable intra- and

interagency communications is determined by its LMR system’s architecture. Many


federal agencies are in the process of transitioning from wideband analog systems to

the Project 25-compliant narrowband digital trunked or conventional systems. The

NTIA mandated this transition from wideband to narrowband operation, and the

transition must be completed for VHF channels by 2005 and by 2008 for UHF

channels. Similarly, many state and local governments are transitioning to

narrowband systems but are more often considering 800 MHz trunked systems to

replace their legacy systems. This strategy creates significant challenges in terms of

interoperability for special and unique operational requirements. It is anticipated that

SDR subscriber equipment will include the capability to operate across multiple

frequency bands and technologies, providing interoperable communications between

disparate networks. Figure 3 presents a general depiction of how SDR subscriber

equipment will operate within public safety LMR networks.


Figure 3

SDR Technology Background

The Department of Defense (DoD) began the development of SDR technology


through the SPEAK easy research program in 1992. The objectives of the program
were to consolidate a family of discrete military radios into a single platform using
software radio technology. The SPEAKeasy program yielded significant
advancements for SDRs. The program proved the feasibility of SDR technology,
achieved a significant reduction in the size and weight of SDR devices, and increased
both computational capacity and overall system performance.
In 1996, the U.S. Government invited industry to participate in the Modular
Multifunction Information Transfer Systems (MMITS) forum. This forum initially
functioned as a guiding body for the establishment of open architecture standards for
the SPEAKeasy program. The MMITS forum eventually shifted its focus from the
government community to the commercial community. In 1999, the MMITS forum
officially changed its name to the SDR Forum. Since then, the SDR Forum has
promoted SDR technologies with applications for commercial cellular, Personal
Communication Systems (PCS), and emerging third-generation (3G) and fourth-
generation (4G) cellular services.
The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), a DoD research program, has
performed extensive research in the area of SDR technology. The mission of the
JTRS effort is to develop a family of tactical software radios, all built on a common,
open software communications architecture (SCA). The SDR Forum has adopted the
SCA standard for developing commercial SDR products.

Advancement of SDR Technology

Radio technology has progressed from being hardware dependent to being more
software oriented. Many view SDR as the next logical step in the evolution process of
radio technology. Figure 2 shows the evolution of SDR technology. The evolution of
all radio technologies begins with hardware radios. Between now and roughly 2008,
software defined radios will start to become more available. In the future, SDRs will
be deployed offering more flexibility and more capabilities. Much farther in the
future, the ideal SDR device will become available, offering the most flexibility and
the most capabilities.
Hardware Radio—Hardware radios are the baseline for comparison with other radio
technologies. Hardware radios were most commonly used in the 1950s and 1960s.
These radios were heavy but extremely durable and long lasting. All radio
components were hard-wired. Switches, dials, and buttons were the only means for a
user to operate the radios. Any changes in operating frequency required physically
swapping the crystals that defined the operating frequency of the radio. Typical
examples are Bendix King, General Electric, and Motorola radios.

Software Controlled Radio—These radios are implemented using modern digital


semiconductor technology. The digital integrated circuitry (IC) inside software
controlled radios allows for the limited control of functions to be implemented by
software. Examples of these control functionalities include frequency
reprogramming, changing encryption keys, and programmable switches and buttons.
However, software controlled radios cannot change modulation types or operating
frequency bands. Most modern LMR radios available today can be classified as
software controlled radios.

Software Defined Radio—The majority of the components in an SDR device are


implemented by software. SDR differs from software controlled radio in that DSP
chips are used to generate various modulation types, filters, and air interfaces.
However, the RF front end of SDR is still implemented by analog circuitry, which
often leads to bulky design, multiple antennas, and architecture complexity.

Ideal Software Defined Radio—Ideal SDRs differs from SDRs in that all radio
components will be implemented by software, including the RF front end. It is
expected that ideal SDRs will have a dramatic improvement in overall system
performance relative to the initial generations SDRs. However, because of
technology limitations, ideal SDRs are unachievable today and may not be realizable
in the foreseeable future.
Figure 4
6. CONCLUSION

Although the SDR technological advances are promising, SDR technology

suitable for use by the public safety community is still in an early stage. This is due to

several factors. SDR technology has the potential to cause interference with other

existing radio systems. The FCC has made rulings addressing interference issues but

has not yet completely addressed other concerns such as spectrum management.

Another factor that indicates that the development of SDR technology is in its early

stages is that the traditional LMR equipment vendors, although active in the

development of SDR technology, have neither invested substantial resources nor

given formal timelines for the development SDR products.

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