The software radio architecture

Abstract

As communications technology continues its rapid transition from analog to digital, more functions of contemporary radio systems are implemented in software, leading toward the software radio. This article provides a tutorial review of software radio architectures and technology, highlighting benefits, pitfalls, and lessons learned. This includes a closer look at the canonical functional partitioning of channel coding into antenna, RF, IF, baseband, and bitstream segments. A more detailed look at the estimation of demand for critical resources is key. This leads to a discussion of affordable hardware configurations, the mapping of functions to component hardware, and related software tools. This article then concludes with a brief treatment of the economics and likely future directions of software radio technology