Software radios: unifying the reconfiguration process over heterogeneous platforms

Future radio transceivers supporting the software radio concept will provide increased features for radio access networks. However, the reconfiguration of radio equipment requires the existence of architecture, a common framework, which allows the flexible management of software running on radio pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Revés Ballesté, Xavier, Gelonch Bosch, Antonio José|||0000-0001-9216-1140, Majorevic, Vuk, Ferrús Ferré, Ramón Antonio|||0000-0002-8296-6233
Format: article
Publication Date:2005
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repository:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/1952
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/1952
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Radio Transmitter-receivers
Delimited interface format
Hardware abstraction layer
Heterogeneous platform
Platform-dependent issue
Radio access networks
Radio transceiver
Reconfigurable architectures
Reconfiguration process
Software radio
Software abstraction layer
Radio execution environment
Time-driven software structure
Time-reference mechanism
Ràdio -- Transmissors i transmissió
Ràdio -- Receptors i recepció
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria de la telecomunicació::Radiocomunicació i exploració electromagnètica::Comunicacions mòbils
Description
Summary:Future radio transceivers supporting the software radio concept will provide increased features for radio access networks. However, the reconfiguration of radio equipment requires the existence of architecture, a common framework, which allows the flexible management of software running on radio processors. Such a framework must take into account the heterogeneity of hardware devices and platforms for radio applications. Since the flexibility has a cost in terms of added overhead, a conceptually simple but efficient structure that allows powerful mechanisms to develop and deploy software radio applications is required. This paper describes our approach, the reasons that motivated it, and some implementation issues. The proposed framework is essentially based on four items: an abstraction layer which hides any platform-dependent issue, a simple time-driven software structure, a delimited interface format for software blocks which does not actually constrain communication, and a global time-reference mechanism to guarantee real-time behavior.