INTRODUCTION

CONTENT


 OPERATION OF SDR
 INTELLIGENT / SMART ANTENNA
 RF FRONT END
 DIGITAL FRONT END
 DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING UNIT
 SDR BENEFITS
 EASE OF MANUFACTURE
 INTEROPERABILTY
 MULTI-FUNCTIOONALITY
 EASE OF UPGRADES
 COMPACTNESS AND POWER EFFICIENCY
 SDR CHALLENGES AND THEIR POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
 SECURITY ISSUES
 INCREASED COMPLEXITY AND DEVELOPMENT
 INCREASED POWER CONSUMPTION
 DESIGNING OF ANTENNAS OVER A WIDE RANGE OF
FREQUENCIES
 CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION

 Term ‘Software Defined Radio’ was first used by Joseph Mitola in

1991 to refer to the class of re-programmable or reconfigurable
radios
 Same piece of hardware can perform different functions at different
times
 The SDR forum defines SDR as a “radio in which some or all of the
physical layer functions are software defined . ”
 Exact definition of SDR controversial as to what amount of radio
functionality should be programmable in order to qualify for SDR
 Ideal SDR – all processing till antenna programmable
 The special issue of IEEE Communications Magazine at May 1995
brought the concept of software radio into larger awareness.
Need

 Future proof radios

 Can sustain the fast change in technology/ standards
 Easy Up-gradation / modification in old designs

 Seamless global coverage w.r.t geographical area and

w.r.t different systems
 SDRs will be able to support multiple air interfaces and will have the
capability to support multiple protocols

 4G
 Cost dependent QoS on demand
Motivations

 Motivations
 Use of advanced DSP tech
 Availability of high-speed DSPs on radio boards
 Ability to perform Adaptive antenna, interference rejection etc. like complex
DSP techs.

 Flexibility to incorporate additional functionalities.

 Change of vocoder in future etc.
 New algorithms for adaptive coding/ modulation/ channel mitigation etc.

SDRs will become the

Because of all these advantages –
standard approach for radio design !!
OPERATION OF SDR

 In SDR, most of the signal processing, channel selection, tuning,

modulation and demodulation are performed in digital domain
through software.
 The ultimate goal of SDR is to move the Analog-to-Digital Converter
(ADC) / Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) as close as possible to
the antenna so that all signal processing can be done digitally via
software.
 SDR transceiver is divided into four main parts: intelligent
antenna/smart antenna, an analog/RF front-end, digital front end
and the digital signal processing unit.
OPERATION OF SDR

 INTELLIGENT / SMART ANTENNA

 Intelligent antenna can be split into the basic antenna elements, the
related array configuration and signal processing blocks.
 Today’s antenna solutions for SDR systems are based on several separate
antennas to cover a broad range of frequency.
 The word ‘Intelligent’ covers the very basic feature of frequency band
selection and adaptation with advance capabilities such as
interference cancellation and mobile tracking.
 An ideal antenna for SDR is a self-adapt, self-align and self-healing
antenna which is capable of complete adaptation to its required
application and the transmission environment.
OPERATION OF SDR
 RF FRONT END
 The front-end section uses analog RF circuitry and it is responsible for
receiving and transmitting the signal at different operating frequencies,
coupling the radio to the antenna or its feeder.
 It also changes the signal to or from the Intermediate Frequency (IF).
OPERATION OF SDR

 DIIGITAL FRONT END

 Digital front end has two major functions. Sample rate conversion
followed by channelization which again includes up/down conversion in
the transmitter and receiver side respectively and filtering.
 The input to the transmitter side of an SDR system is a digital baseband
signal, typically generated by a DSP stage.
OPERATION OF SDR

 DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING UNIT

 The digital signal processing module consists of digital signal processor (DSP) and
a variety of programmable digital chips.
 The programmable digital chips contain Application Specific Integrated
Circuit (ASIC), Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), Graphics
Processing Units (GPUs), General Purpose Processors (GPP).
 DSP is the heart of SDR which performs the baseband signal, processing,
modulation and demodulation, timing synchronization, encoding and
decoding.
 Containing a high speed processing block a DSP processes the signal by
retrieving instructions and data from memory, performs requested
operations, and stores the results back to memory.
SDR BENEFITS

 The main benefit of moving to software radio includes increased

flexibility (upgradeability, customization and adaptability) . The
factors influencing the wide acceptance of software radios in
commercial market are given.
 Ease of manufacture
• The time to market of a commercial product is a key consideration in modern
engineering design.
• Software radio implementation and upgradation of devices via software
reduces the design complexity by freeing the designers from the tiresome job
associated with analog hardware design and their implementation.
SDR BENEFITS

 Interoperability
 An SDR can seamlessly communicate with multiple radios that support
different wireless standards.
 It can also perform bridging between radios as a single multi-channel and
multi-standard SDR can act as a translator for all the radios dedicated to a
particular frequency.
 Multi-functionality
 The flexible architecture would allow the SDR to support multiple wireless
standards.
 With rapid growth of different wireless standards like Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11
(WLAN) etc.
 it is now possible to enhance the services of a radio by leveraging other
devices that provides complimentary services such as data-audio-video
transfer via Bluetooth or finding accurate position via GPS etc.
SDR BENEFITS

 Ease of upgrades
 In the course of deployment, current services may need to be updated or
new services may have to be introduced.
 A flexible architecture of SDR allows improvements and addition of already
existing or new functionality through software only instead of replacing the
hardware platform or user terminals.
 Compactness and power efficiency
 The software radio approach, however, results in a compact and in some
cases, a power-efficient design.
 As the number of functionalities increase, same piece of hardware is reused
to implement multiple interfaces thus less number of different hardware
components are required as well as power consumption is lowered.
SDR CHALLENGES AND THEIR
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
A. Security Issues
 The wireless communication is prone to interference and security threats.
In SDR, security threat is major as the consequence of its reconfiguration
capability for handling different wireless standards.
 Re-configurability is increased by adjusting signal parameters (like
frequency, power, and modulation types) through installing or
downloading new software instead of removing and replacing
hardware components.
 The successful deployment of SDR technologies will depend on the
design and implementation of essential security mechanisms to ensure
the robustness of networks and terminals against security threats.
Security issues (continue…
Some major security aspects and their protection techniques
are as follows.
1. Insertion of malicious software to SDR terminals
• Malicious software can be downloaded by an attacker to the
SDR terminals.
• This can be prevented by authentication and verification of
software by using Digital Signature to ensure that only authorized
software is activated.
2. Alteration or destruction of the configuration data
• Configuration data which is needed by the SDR components to
perform its functions can be corrupted or removed from the SDR
platform.
• This can be resolved by using data integrity which maintains
accuracy and consistency of data over it entire life cycle of SDR.
Security issues (continue…
3. Overuse of processing and memory resources
• This threat causes abnormal increase in the consumption of processing or
memory resources of the SDR platform to cause degradation of service (DoS).
• SDR can be protected from this threat by using Trusted Computing (TC) via
digital certificate.
4. Data Extraction from SDR components
• Attacker collects configuration data of SDR components, air interface data or
user data which can be used in subsequent attacks.
• This can be avoided by the integrity of the Security Administrative Module
(SAM) which controls modification, activation, and execution of the software
modules.
5. Unauthorized use of SDR services
• Due to this threat, an malicious software or applications can access or use
services of the SDR platform for which it does not have the proper access level.
The Automatic and Calibration Unit (ACU) represent a protection technique
against this security threat related to communication service of SDR.
• If a malicious signal is activated in the SDR node, the ACU can prevent it from
transmitting in unauthorized bands.
SDR CHALLENGES AND THEIR
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
B. INCREASED COMPLEXITY AND DEVELOPMENT
• In SDR, multiple signals are designed to run on a single platform and platform can be
reconfigured at different times to host different signals according to users need.
• For example, a single programmable channel can replace two separate
dedicated hardware channels. But compared to hardware intensive radio, SDR
increases complexity of a manufacturer’s design and development process.
• Open source hardware such as USRP and software called GNU Radio Companion
(GRC) are commonly used to do experiments in SDR.
• Since the cost of USRP is high, a low cost set up is needed which is easily affordabl.
• A low cost alternative is proposed known as Realtek Software Defined Radio (RTL-
SDR) along with an RF mixer.
• RF mixer converts signal to higher frequencies and thereby bringing the signal to
the tuning range of RTL-SDR.
SDR CHALLENGES AND THEIR
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
C. INCREASED POWER CONSUMPTION

• The software and digital logic implementation imposes a computational

burden on the SDR platform that leads to an increase in power
consumption.
• To mitigate the expected increase in complexity leading to a decrease
in energy efficiency, cooperative wireless networks are introduced.
• Cooperative wireless network enables the concept of resource sharing.
• Resource sharing is interpreted as collaborative signal processing .
• This interpretation leads to the concept of a distributed signal processor.
SDR CHALLENGES AND THEIR
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
D. DESIGNING OF ANTENNAS OVER A WIDE RANGE OF FREQUENCIES

• Another challenge lies in designing antennas over a wide range of

frequencies since the antennas propagate signals differently for different
frequencies transmitted.
• This leads to the development of Multiple Input-Multiple Output (MIMO)
concept and tunable reconfigurable antenna implementation within an
SDR to maintain uniform and consistent antenna characteristics over a
broad range of frequency or multiband frequencies.
• In addition, an electronic circuit called ‘Antenna tuner’ connects the
antennas to the rest of the circuit.
• They are optimized for different antennas and must be matched for
optimal power performance.
CONCLUSION

 The vision of SDR is implementing a single radio device containing

software controlled digital hardware that can emulate any radio signal
of evolving or already existing wireless standards simply by updating
software without replacing the underlying hardware platform.
 The growth of SDR technology depends on the development of the
performance of its participating components such as continuous
enhancement of the resolution and sampling rate of signal converters
ADCs/DACs, the better performance of filters, amplifiers and
improvement of processors in terms of their functionality, performance,
speed, power consumption etc.
 Although SDR technology faces several hurdles, many positive
approaches are being introduced to overcome them.
 These make it suitable to contribute in the development of future
generations of wireless communication technology by resolving the
limitations of traditional hardware structure.