Smart, adaptive communications

Abstract

This paper describes a demonstration of a “carefree” user-friendly, software definable, “cognitive” radio that can automatically sense and adapt to its environment and demand for service. This is the first in a series of demonstrations which will incrementally assure the end users of the realizability of fielded “software programmable radios” (i.e. Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS)). A cognitive radio monitoring a transmission must recognize the type of waveform received, including frequencies, modulation, data type (voice, data, sensor data) and have the ability to automatically reconfigure itself to communicate. A cognitive radio must also be able to sense the electromagnetic environment and make changes to maximize bandwidth, Quality of Service (QoS) and maintain security. Cognitive radio will enable more efficient communications by allowing the radio to choose the correct waveform, the correct data rate, the correct compression algorithm, the correct RF power, and the correct path. Decisions have to be made based on many criteria including: data/voice priorities, low probability of intercept vs. anti jam, atmospheric conditions and hardware resource availability. This effort was demonstrated on the SOftware Radio Development System (SoRDS). SoRDS is a fully programmable and reconfigurable software radio, developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Rome, New York (AFRL Rome) and is capable of transmitting and receiving voice, data, video, or network traffic. SoRDS is a portable platform that enables rapid development and demonstration of wireless communication applications. The SoRDS concept was to create a software reprogrammable and hardware upgradeable testbed to support evaluation of wireless voice, multimedia and network radio communication applications. SoRDS consists of a general purpose processing system, an adaptive computing system and an IF/RF system. Using SoRDS, wireless applications can be developed from algorithm to implementation and baseband to RF. SoRDS is JTRS capable so the research done can be directly transitioned to JTRS.