SOFTWARE DEFINED

RADIO

SOFTWARE DEFINED
RADIO
BY

N.BALA MURALI KRISHNA

11QM1A0456

PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
Definition
History
SDR advantages
Motivation toward SDR
Technical overview
Architecture
Software Overview

DEFINITION

Whats SDR
Software-defined radio(SDR) is aradiocommunication
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 orembedded system.

HISTORY OF SDR
The term "Software Defined Radio" was coined in
1991 by Joseph Mitola, who published the first
paper on the topic in 1992

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.

SDR ADVANTAGES
Complete Base band processing digital Reconfigurable
Software upgrading of commercial radios Future proof
Generic hardware can be used for a variety of applications
Inventory

Software prototyping faster and cheaper than hardware

prototyping Time to market

Libraries of software radio components are easily created

and shared Reuse

Digital processing of signals is ideal, unencumbered by the

non-linearities that plague analog hardware-Reliability

MOTIVATION TOWARDS SDR

Commercial wireless communication industry is currently

facing problems due to constant evolution of link-layer

protocol standards (2G, 3G, and 4G)
existence of incompatible wireless network technologies in
different countries inhibiting deployment of global roaming
facilities
problems in rolling-out new services/features due to widespread presence of legacy subscriber handsets.

TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
IDEAL SDR

IDEAL RECEIVER
IDEAL TRANSMITTER
PRACTICAL RECEIVERS
TYPICAL COMPONENTS

IDEAL SDR
The ideal SDR will cover all frequencies from 9kHz to 300GHz.

and modulate/demodulate all modulation

It will receive/transmit
modes and bandwidths

It will configure itself automatically.

IDEAL TRANSMITTER AND RECEIVER

The ideal receiver scheme would be to attach an

analog-to-digital converter to an antenna to directly

convert RF to digital.
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.

PRACTICAL RECEIVERS
Current digital electronics are too slow to receive
typical radio signals that range from 10 kHz to 2 GHz
Problem solved by using a mixer and a reference
oscillator to heterodyne the radio signal to a lower
frequency.
Digital IQ modulator used.
Real analog-to-digital converters lack the
discrimination to pick up sub-microvolt, nanowatt
radio signals.
A low noise amplifier must precede the conversion
step.

Typical Components of SDR

Analog Radio Frequency (RF) receiver/transmitter in the 200

MHz to multi-gigahertz range.

High-speed A/D and D/A converters to digitize a wide portion

of the spectrum at 25 to 210 Msamples/sec.

High-speed front-end signal processing including Digital Down

Conversion (DDC) consisting of one or more chains of mix +
filter + decimate or up conversion.

Spread spectrumandultra widebandtechniques allow several

transmitters to transmit in the same place on the same frequency
with very little interference

PC equipped with sound card

Architectures of SDR
DUC: Digital
upconverter
DDC: Digital
downconverter
CFR: Crest factor
reduction DPD: Digital
predistortion
PA: Power amplifier
LNA: Low noise
amplifier

RF Front End

The principle of operation depends on the use ofheterodyningorfrequency

mixing.

The signal from the antenna is filtered sufficiently at least to reject

theimage frequency and possibly amplified.

Alocal oscillatorin the receiver produces a sine wave whichmixeswith that

signal, shifting it to a specificintermediate frequency(IF), usually a lower
frequency.

The IF signal is itself filtered and amplified and possibly processed in

additional ways

DIGITAL IQ modulator

Two carriers of same frequency but 90 deg out of phase are used, which are
combined at transmission.

Message too is modified to consist of two separate signals 90 deg phase

shifted version

original

90 deg phase shifted version

ADC & DAC

ADC- Sampling ( Nyquist theorem)

Quantisation

Flash ADC is the fastest of all.

DAC- weighted resistor

R-2R ladder

V(out)= V( ref)* (D/2^N)

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

DDC- Digital Down Conversion

Digital radio receivers often have fast ADC converters delivering vast
amounts of data; but in many cases, the signal of interest represents a small
proportion of that bandwidth. A DDC allows the rest of that data to be
discarded. When performed in a field programmable gate array (FPGA),
simple digital down conversion is broken up into three distinct steps:
frequency shifting, filtering, and decimation

DUC-Digital Up Conversion

Digital radio transmitters use DAC, A DUC is used to generate an IF

signal and increase the sampling rate. The DUC process is the exact
inverse of the DDC process. Instead of down conversion and decimation,
a DUC uses interpolation and up conversion.

Interpolation, or up sampling, translates a low sample rate modulated

signal into a much higher sample rate signal that is ready for up
conversion. This step, often performed in software, can multiply the
overall waveform size by any factor.

Finally, the modulated, interpolated data mixes with a carrier that

upconverts the baseband signal to the required carrier frequency.

Crest factor REDUCTION (CFR)

Crest factoris a measure of awaveform, such asalternating currentor

sound, showing the ratio of peak values to the average value. In other
words, crest factor indicates how extreme the peaks are in a waveform

modulation techniques that have smaller crest factors usually transmit

more bits per second than modulation techniques that have higher crest
factors.

Crest factor reduction (CFR) reduces the output peak-to-average ratio by

clipping . We can operate closer to the amplifier compression point,
therefore it is more efficient.

DIGITAL PREDISTORTION (DPD)

DPD is an active linearisation technique

used to compensation for amplifiers
non-linearity

Allows the signal to operate close to or

even below P sat.

Correction signal is injected at PAs input

in order to reduce the overall distortion
at output.

FPGA

SDR system uses a generic hardware platform with programmable

modules (DSPs, FPGAs, microprocessors) and analog RF modules

FPGAs (FieldProgrammableGateArrays) are amazing devices that now

allow the average person to create their very own digital circuits.

It is an IC that could contain million of logic gates that can be electrically

configured to perform a certain task using HDL ( Hardware Description
Languages)

More flexible than microcontroller.

Software Overview

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) software applications

employ the math of Fourier Transforms..

FT describes which frequencies are present in the

original function.

An open architecture

Allows third party waveform/component development

Standardised procedure for Loading and Control of

software modules

Should be one relying on proven technologies shorter

development time

THE END
QUESTIONS