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Software Defined Radio

Software defined radio (SDR) is a system where components traditionally implemented in hardware, such as mixers, filters, and modulators/demodulators, are instead implemented through software. This allows a radio to receive and transmit various protocols based solely on its software. SDR provides benefits for the military and cell services which must support changing radio protocols in real time. Proponents believe SDR will become the dominant technology in radio communications.

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101 views2 pages

Software Defined Radio

Software defined radio (SDR) is a system where components traditionally implemented in hardware, such as mixers, filters, and modulators/demodulators, are instead implemented through software. This allows a radio to receive and transmit various protocols based solely on its software. SDR provides benefits for the military and cell services which must support changing radio protocols in real time. Proponents believe SDR will become the dominant technology in radio communications.

Uploaded by

preciousmahesh21
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO

A software-defined radio system, or SDR, is a radio communication system where


components that have been typically implemented in hardware (e.g. mixers, filters,
amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by means
of software on a personal computer or embedded computing devices.[1] While the concept
of SDR is not new, the rapidly evolving capabilities of digital electronics render practical
many processes which used to be only theoretically possible.

A basic SDR system may consist of a personal computer equipped with a sound card, or
other analog-to-digital converter, preceded by some form of RF front end. Significant
amounts of signal processing are handed over to the general-purpose processor, rather
than being done in special-purpose hardware. Such a design produces a radio which can
receive and transmit widely different radio protocols (sometimes referred to as a
waveforms) based solely on the software used.

Software radios have significant utility for the military and cell phone services, both of
which must serve a wide variety of changing radio protocols in real time.

In the long term, software-defined radios are expected by proponents like the SDR Forum
(now The Wireless Innovation Forum) to become the dominant technology in radio
communications. SDRs , along with software defined antennas are the enablers of the
cognitive radio.

Operating principles
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 not completely realizable due to the actual limits of the technology.
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 use 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 dynamic range to pick up sub-microvolt,


nanowatt-power 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 (which is typical), 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
channel filters with different bandwidths that are switched in and out.

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