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Software Defined Radio
Software Defined Radio (SDR) is a technology capable of configuring a wireless device to work with any communications system, be it a cellular phone, a pager, a WI-FI transceiver, an FM or AM radio, a satellite communications terminal and even a garage door opener. It offers both cost and time savings for consumers, who would only need to buy one radio to meet multiple communications needs. And more importantly, the same technology can facilitate interoperability among the communications systems used by military, police and rescue-relief teams, who currently cannot always communicate with each other, even sometimes in critical, life-threatening situations because of incompatible radio systems.
This unique radio technology works much like personal computing, where a single hardware platform can carry out many functions based on the software applications loaded. SDR uses software to perform radio-signal processing functions instead of using discrete electronic components, or application-specific integrated circuits. Frequency tuning, filtering, synchronization, encoding and modulation are now functions performed in software on high-speed reprogrammable devices such as digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable field arrays (FPGA), or general purpose processors (GPP). RF components are still needed for generation of high frequencies or for signal amplifications and radiation but SDR aims at reducing their usage to a minimum
Military and public safety organizations from around the world are considering SDR to solve their interoperability problems. SDR technology is mandated by the US Department of Defense in their acquisition of military software defined radios. This new generation of radios are replacing tens of thousands of single protocol, single use radios. The Wireless Innovation Forum (formerly Software Defined Radio Forum) is promoting SDR technology for military and for commercial applications.
At the center of this new technology is the software architecture on which the radios must be built and communication protocols implemented. Many proprietary architectures exist, but to ensure portability and interoperability of the protocols on the different radios, an open architecture had to be developed. The Software Communications Architecture (SCA) is such an architecture. The SCA is a set of specifications describing the interaction between the different software and hardware components of a radio and providing software commands for their control. The SCA has been developed by the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) project, adopted by the Wireless Innovation Forum (WInnF).
Early adopter of the SCA, CRC's Advanced Radio System group (RARS) has been involved in the evolution and adaptation of the specification. [read more on 10+ years of RARS achievements...]
Today, CRC offers a number of products and services for the development of SDR technology. For more information, please visit our Products and Technical Services section.
For more information please contact:
Steve Bernier
Research Program Manager, Software Defined Radio
Advanced Radio Systems
Satellite Communications and Radio Propagation Research (VPSAT)
Communications Research Centre Canada
Tel: (613) 991-6343
Fax: (613) 990-6339
Email: steve.bernier@crc.gc.ca
