An adaptive software defined radio design based on a standard space telecommunication radio system API

摘要

Software defined radio (SDR) has become a popular tool for the implementationand testing for communications performance. The advantage of the SDR approachincludes: a re-configurable design, adaptive response to changing conditions,efficient development, and highly versatile implementation. In order tounderstand the benefits of SDR, the space telecommunication radio system (STRS)was proposed by NASA Glenn research center (GRC) along with the standardapplication program interface (API) structure. Each component of the systemuses a well-defined API to communicate with other components. The benefit ofstandard API is to relax the platform limitation of each component for additionoptions. For example, the waveform generating process can support a fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA), personal computer (PC), or an embedded system.As long as the API defines the requirements, the generated waveform selectionwill work with the complete system. In this paper, we demonstrate the designand development of adaptive SDR following the STRS and standard API protocol.We introduce step by step the SDR testbed system including the controllinggraphic user interface (GUI), database, GNU radio hardware control, anduniversal software radio peripheral (USRP) tranceiving front end. In addition,a performance evaluation in shown on the effectiveness of the SDR approach forspace telecommunication.