Software-defined radio gets major boost on technical and regulatory fronts

A Burnaby BC company is launching a new software-defined radio (SDR) platform that could make it easier for multiple countries to coordinate their military operations. Spectrum Signal Processing Inc’s new flexComm radio is being developed in partnership with the Canadian government. Last month, the company received a $500,000 grant from the Defence Industrial Research Program (DIRP) to add ultra-wide band capability to its flexComm SDR architecture. The new radio, which will be used in a satellite terminal application, is essentially a subsystem that provides OEMs such as Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin the tools to build a complete SDR system. The software re-configurable terminal will be put through a battery of tests by the Communications Research Centre and Defence Research Establishment Ottawa. Due to the sensitive nature of the project and the application of the terminal, no other details were available. Development of this type of product could ensure inter-operability between military forces – not between countries per se, but between different branches within the same country, explains Manuel Uhm, senior manager, strategic marketing for the company’s wireless systems group. "That’s what’s really driving software-defined radio," he says. "U.S. Army forces can’t communicate with U.S. Navy forces on the same radio and they can’t coordinate an attack with British forces because they are using a different frequency, a different encryption and a different protocol." Radios can be updated or re-configured to inter-operate with other radios through a simple download. Uhm explains that it can be done over the air or via the network making "a download once, reconfigure all" scenario a reality. "So instead of having to carry around six different radios to communicate with all these different forces, you have just one that you can change the characteristics of with software," he explains. "Now you can talk to all these different forces with a single radio and coordinate very tactical and surgical strikes." In terms of data rates, the difference between standard radio protocols such as CDMA and ultra-wide band is enormous. In the case of CDMA, channels are 1.25 MHz offering speeds of about 14 kbs while wide band CDMA will use 5 MHz channels offering mobile data rates up to 2 Mbs. The ultra-wide band capability that will be added to the flexComm architecture will have channels of 400 MHz offering throughput rates at much faster speeds. Uhm says there is commercial applicability for this type of super fast technology, but it is still a few years away from deployment. What has helped advance the cause of software defined radio is a recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission to allow on-the-fly changes of frequencies and protocols of SDR systems. The decision came down late last month, following intense pressure from the American wireless industry which was worried that the U.S. government wasn’t keeping up with Japan in this area.Uhm lauds the FCC’s decision to be more flexible with SDRs, saying it removes a huge burden for the future mass deployment of software defined radios. "The real thing holding software-defined radio back is the fact that flexibility does come at a price," he tells Report on Wireless. "Once you generate the kinds of economies of scale that can be generated in the commercial world, then all of a sudden you have a platform that conceivably could compete on a cost level with fixed-function platforms, but have all the flexibility of being software defined." Uhm expects that within the next three-to-five years the majority of all base stations deployed will be software-defined. The company will begin selling its flexComm SDR 3000 early next year and the ultra wide band flexComm will reach the market in 2003.

Software-defined radio gets major boost on technical and regulatory fronts

News | 10/02/2001 4:00 am EDT

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