The European project trust—reconfigurable terminals and supporting networks

Abstract

To date, research into reconfigurable mobile communications has predominantly focussed on the software radio concept, and specifically on the hardware technologies required to move physical layer processing into a programmable environment [1, 2, 3]. Although an interesting and necessary challenge, this only represents a fraction of the overall support and technology required to realise the potential of the concept. Other necessary developments include network/terminal cooperation for seamless inter-standard handoff, QoS management for software download and reconfiguration, a secure software download mechanism, terminal software and mobile radio network architecture supporting terminal reconfiguration, management for software downloads, configuration management, capability negotiation, radio resource management and spectrum allocation policies etc… This paper describes results from the EuropeanIst Trust (Transparently Reconfigurable UbiquitouS Terminal) [4] project concerning user and operator requirements, the proposed overall system environment, security issues, concerted radio resource management, and expected time frame for the development of reconfigurable terminals.