Dynamic reconfiguration of software defined radios using standard architectures

Abstract

The software defined radio (SDR) has opened the doors for levels of radio reconfiguration not possible through the use of more traditional radio design approaches. While most radios allow variation of parameters such as carrier frequency, an SDR enables large-scale reconfiguration (e.g., changing to a different protocol type or MAC). In this research, we explore automated, dynamic large-scale radio reconfiguration through the implementation and characterization of three alternative reconfigurable radio designs. These implementations seek to quantify the impacts of implementing large-scale radio reconfiguration through SDR application management enabled by the Software Communications Architecture (SCA) and similar SDR architectures. The SCA, a widely used SDR standard developed by the US Department of Defense, primarily supports static configurations with infrequent reconfiguration. However, we present a novel approach that uses features of the SCA and its enabling technologies to achieve rapid dynamic reconfiguration of SDRs. The act of radio reconfiguration through SCA application management is found to momentarily decrease the radio throughput. Although some overhead is experienced in the demonstration systems, the methods discussed achieve a high degree of flexibility through the use of standard SDR architectures.