10-06-2017, 07:04 AM
A Software Defined Radio (SDR) system is a radio communication system where components that have typically been implemented in hardware (i.e. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors. etc.) are instead implemented using software on a personal computer or other embedded computing devices. While the concept of SDR is not new, the rapidly evolving capabilities of digital electronics are making practical many processes that were once only theoretically possible. A basic SDR may consist of a computer (PC) 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 done using special-purpose hardware. Such a design produces a radio that can receive and transmit a different form of radio protocol (sometimes referred to as a waveform) just by running different software. 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 radio is expected by its proponents to become the dominant technology in radio communications. It is the enabler of the cognitive radio.