A soft radio architecture for reconfigurable platforms

TLDR

Many soft/software radio architectures exist, yet no formal design methodology has been established for creating and implementing them. This article introduces a unified layered radio architecture for designing soft radios on reconfigurable platforms. The layered architecture integrates all software‑radio features while reducing complexity and provides a systematic method for incorporating changes and updates. The authors present a hardware implementation that validates the layered architecture.

Abstract

While many soft/software radio architectures have been suggested and implemented, there remains a lack of a formal design methodology that can be used to design and implement these radios. This article presents a unified architecture for the design of soft radios on a reconfigurable platform called the layered radio architecture. The layered architecture makes it possible to incorporate all of the features of a software radio while minimizing complexity issues. The layered architecture also enables a methodology for incorporating changes and updates into the system. An example implementation of the layered architecture on actual hardware is presented.