A Survey Of Software Radios: Reconfigurable Platforms, Development Tools And Future Directions

Abstract

Software-Defined Radio (SDR) approaches for rapid prototyping of radio systems using reconfigurable hardware platforms offer significant advantages over traditional analog and hardwarecentered methods. In particular, time and cost savings can be achieved by reusing tested design artefacts; this translates to supporting various features and functionalities, such as updating and upgrading through reprogramming, without the need to replace the hardware on which they are implemented. This opens the doors to the possibility of realizing multi-band and multi-functional wireless devices. Progress in the SDR field has led to the escalation of protocol development and a wide spectrum of applications, with more emphasis on programmability, flexibility, portability, and energy efficiency, in Mobile technology, Wi-Fi, and M2M communication. Consequently, SDR has earned a lot of attention and great significance to both academia and industry. SDR designers intend to simplify the realization of communication protocols while enabling researchers to experiment with prototypes on deployed networks. This Research is a survey of the state-of-the art SDR platforms and development tools in the context of wireless communication which presented an overview of SDR architecture and its basic components; and discussed the significant design trends and development tools. In addition, we reviewed available SDR platforms with an analytical comparison based on a set of metrics as a guide to developers. Finally, we offered some predictable future Directions for SDR Researches