GSC9/GRSC_013

SOURCE:

ETSI ERM-TG#32

TITLE:

Software Defined Radio

AGENDA ITEM:

GRSC#2 Item 5

CONTACT:

Phillipe Mege (philippe.mege@EADS-TELECOM.COM)

Software Defined Radio

Activities within Europe in the
European Commissions TCAM
Committee and ETSI
16-12-09

GSC-9, Seoul

The European Commission's TCAM

Committee (1)
The Commissions TCAM Committee is responsible
for the regulatory environment created by the
R&TTE Directive
TCAM established a specialist ad hoc group to consider how
Software Defined Radio (SDR) products should be handled
under the R&TTE Directive
The ad hoc group produced a questionnaire On the Impact of
SDR on the R&TTE Directive
The aim of this consultation was to obtain comments from
interested parties on a variety of issues relating to Software
Defined Radio
The questionnaire was published on the official European
Commission Web Pages last autumn
GSC-9, Seoul

The European Commission's TCAM

Committee (2)
The Questionnaire covered four areas:
1. Questions related to when SDR equipment is likely to
appear on the market at the earliest (Q1, Q2)
2. Questions related to what SDR is likely to change in
the applicability of R&TTE (Q3 Q9)
3. Questions related to possible changes in the R&TTE
Directive (Q10, Q11)
4. Standardisation (Q12 Q13)
GSC-9, Seoul

The European Commission's TCAM

Committee (3)
General Summary of the Answers to the
Questionnaire:

Under the New approach guide the product is considered a

new product if the software effects the essential requirements

The provisions of R&TTE Directive are adequate as it requires

an entity (manufacturer) to take responsibility for the placing of
product on the market

For the Software provider the same requirements should apply

as to hardware manufacture concerning the R&TTE-Directive

GSC-9, Seoul

ETSI Activities
Software Defined Radio
ETSI activities centre around Task Group#32 of
TC-ERM (EMC and Radio Spectrum Matters)
Link and impact to coexistence standards,
methods of measurements and limits
GSC-9, Seoul

What is Software Defined Radio ?

Objective: Give more flexibility on Radio Front-End
For:
Using the same Hardware Platform for different systems
Different standards
Different frequency bands and frequency bandwidths

Providing more easily interoperability

Downloading the air interface through the air for automatic
reconfiguration
By:
Transferring the maximum of radio functions from analogue to digital
Sharing the radio function between analogue and digital

Digitising at high sampling rate as close as possible to the antenna

instead of classically sampling at moderate rate in Intermediate Frequency
or in Baseband

GSC-9, Seoul

Classical Heterodyne architecture

(Receiver chain)
Radio Domain

Baseband Domain

Digital Domain

Analogue Domain

1st mixer

HF
Frontend

2nd mixer
Narrowband
Channel filter

Radio Domain

Complementary
Filtering

Analogue Digital
Converter

<==> Analogue Domain

Baseband Domain <==>

GSC-9, Seoul

Digital Domain

Baseband Signal
Processing
(Software)

The Normative Environment

SDR Forum co-ordinates the activities world-wide
A generic approach mainly devoted to military
applications
Definition of software development approaches for simplifying
portability (SCA: Standard Communication Architecture)
Hardware implementation with FPGAs apart Baseband and
with general purpose processors for Baseband (for maximum
flexibility and reconfigurability)

Software development cost effectiveness is the target

Due to the huge amount of different systems and standards to
be implemented on the universal Hardware platform

Equipment cost is not the major considered aspect

GSC-9, Seoul

General Context
Software Defined Radio is pushed strongly for
military applications
Due to the difficulties of interoperability with legacy equipment
Need to communicate with a very large number of different
types of systems between the different armed forces,
different Countries, different components of the armed
forces (Air, Navy, Land forces, security forces)

GSC-9, Seoul

Software Radio for PMR

Software Radio is also of primary interest for Private Mobile
Radio (PMR)
PMR is characterised by a large number of different systems
and standards in different frequency bands and with different
bandwidths:
Analogue systems
Narrowband (6.25 kHz)
DMR (12.5 kHz)
TETRAPOL (12.5 kHz, 10 kHz)
TETRA 1 (25 kHz)
APCO 25 Phase 1 (12.5 kHz)
APCO 25 Phase 2 (12.5 kHz equivalent 6.25 kHz)
Wideband Data TETRA 2 TEDS (25, 50, 100, 150, 200 kHz)
Wideband Data TIA SAM/IOTA (50, 100, 150 kHz)

And interest for PMR/PAMR/Public systems with GSM also

(or with other systems) on the same equipment
GSC-9, Seoul

Software radio for PMR: Objectives

Objectives
Reduce the development costs:
A single Hardware Platform for several standards and systems

Reduce the equipment costs

Use as much as possible Off the Shelf Components
Develop highly integrated components (ASICs) for specific functions
(and applicable for the different systems and standards)

Additional benefits
Reduction of size and weight of equipment
Improved autonomy of equipment
Capability of evolution of systems and equipment
GSC-9, Seoul

Constraints for coexistence (Classical case)

Narrowband filtering early in the receiver chain means
that:
most of the interferers are rejected
only closest ones are important (adjacent, alternate, )
blocking shall also be considered (Broadband noise of
the LO)
useful signal is dominant in the signal that comes into
the Analogue/Digital Converter
GSC-9, Seoul

Constraints for coexistence

(Software Radio case)

Analogue/Digital Conversion is applied close to the antenna

a whole band is then digitised:

not only the useful signal
but also all the signals going through the wideband filter placed before
the ADC

Then contributors to interference are all the signals that are

digitised
not necessarily only adjacent and alternate
many interference signals can be present
This means a need of large dynamic of the ADC because saturation of
the wideband digital signal can damage dramatically the useful signal

So the approach for measurement applied in PMR (LMR)

standards is not totally well suited for Software Radio case
GSC-9, Seoul

Constraints for coexistence

(Software Radio case)
We need to avoid over-specification and over-testing
The constraints of the base co-existence standard EN 300 113 are in practise
relevant only when applied to an uncoordinated environment (Direct mode, or
small systems with only few bands allocated for example)
In a large system, a bloc of channels is allocated to the whole system
Interference (co-channel, adjacent channel, ) is limited thanks to adequate radio
planning and frequency reuse
the protection limits (especially at receiver side) can be in practise relaxed in this
case
Then, for a software radio structure for example, the constraints in the whole
digitised band are not necessarily the addition of the most stringent constraints of
EN 300 113
The number of channels effectively contributing to interference needs also to be
taken into account
GSC-9, Seoul

The Transmitter Chain case

A similar problem can appear with the transmitter, for
example, the following conditions:
Combination at the Base station of several channels in
digital before Digital/Analogue Conversion and Power
Amplifier
Multi-channel modulations (e.g. OFDM) where each subchannel is modulated and all sub-channels are
combined in the same transmitted signal
In these case problems of saturation in the DAC can
also appear.
GSC-9, Seoul

Conclusion
The Regulatory environment established in Europe under the
R&TTE Directive applies equally to Software Defined Radio
products
Software Defined Radio products have the capability of
providing both flexibility in their application and early market
access for new products
Software Defined Radio products have the potential to combined
radio systems to facilitate interoperability between potentially
incompatible systems
GSC-9, Seoul