Introduction to the Software-defined Radio Approach

TLDR

Telecommunications have evolved with digital technologies, leading to Software‑Defined Radio (SDR) where software controls radio behavior while hardware implements only the RF front‑end. The article aims to present GNU Radio as a tool for developing configurable digital radios. GNU Radio, an open‑source SDR framework, is used to build and configure digital radio applications.

Abstract

Telecommunications have been in constant evolution during past decades. Among the technological innovations, the use of digital technologies is very relevant. Digital communication systems have proven their efficiency and brought a new element in the chain of signal transmitting and receiving, the digital processor. This device offers to new radio equipments the flexibility of a programmable system. Nowadays, the behavior of a communication system can be modified by simply changing its software. This gave rising to a new radio model called Software Defined Radio (or Software-Defined Radio - SDR). In this new model, one moves to the software the task to set radio behavior, leaving to hardware only the implementation of RF front-end. Thus, the radio is no longer static, defined by their circuits and becomes a dynamic element, which may change their operating characteristics, such as bandwidth, modulation, coding rate, even modified during runtime according to software configuration. This article aims to present the use of GNU Radio software, an open-source solution for SDR specific applications, as a tool for development configurable digital radio.