8 matchs for software+defined+radio:
Wired has an article on Ettus Research and their $550 USRP. From the Ettus website:
The Universal Software Radio Peripheral, or USRP, is device which allows you to create a software radio using any computer with a USB 2 port. Various plug-on daughterboards allow the USRP to be used on different radio frequency bands. Daughterboards are available from DC to 2.9 GHz at this time. The entire design of the USRP is open source.
The USRP works with GNU Radio, a free-software (open source) framework for the creation of software defined radios.
I've written before about software defined radio. Nice to see it actually getting out into people's hands.
Software defined radio doing well in initial trials.
Researchers have successfully tested a system that can replace a cellular tower's room full of communications hardware with a single desk-top style computer, making the technology affordable for small, rural communities....
Vanu Software Radio™ is first of its kind to perform all functions of a GSM (a digital cellular standard) base station using only software and a non-specialized computer server. The servers run the Linux operating system on Pentium processors, further simplifying the technology and reducing cost.
The company successfully demonstrated the technology in two rural Texas communities: De Leon in Comanche County and Gorman in Eastland County. When the test ends, the technology will remain as a cellular infrastructure run by Mid-Tex Cellular, Ltd.
Vanu shows off software defined radio prototype running on the iPaq. Here's all the +3 slashdot comments, including this representative overview:
...What this means (in the future, with 2.4GHz+ capable devices) is that one device (be it your PDA, mobile phone, PCMCIA card) can be a GSM phone, can be a CDMA phone, can be a 3G phone, can be a CB/commercial/police radio receiver, it could even be used for 802.11b or Bluetooth. The possibilities for software radio are mind boggling. Linux is really irrelevant in the scheme of things, it's essentially just used to bolt the stuff together - it's the underlying technology that is impressive.Bring on the uber communicator. Converge damn it.
I know just little enough to still hope for a really cool big breakthrough: unlimited decentralized wireless bandwidth everywhere. Or at least everywhere there are other people.
Ad-hoc mesh networking, in other words. Taking the telecom infrastructure that currently underlies the internet and distributing it out into end user devices. In this new model you don't just connect to the internet, you are the internet. Instead of your modem connecting to a router (say, at your ISP) your modem will also be a router. And so will everyone else's.
O.K., that's probably a bit too simple, but something like this is happening. And the key will be software, not hardware. Specifically, software defined radio, like gnu radio. This type of software allows your general purpose computer to reconfigure itself on the fly to work with any known radio format.
Here are Cory Doctorow's short notes from a talk by the gnu radio guys at ETcon.
GNU Radio is a free software toolkit for realtime signal processing things -- radio included. Works for sonar, medical imaging, etc.This flexibility will unleash a tidal wave of experimentation. Think how hard, and expensive, it is to introduce a new wireless technology. The telcoms have to roll out all new equipment (like build towers everywhere!) while the public has to buy all new wireless cards. This sort of outlay cannot happen very often, which is why we still have very poor wireless technology deployed.
Get as much stuff as we can into software, out of hardware.
Turn all the hardware problems into software problems -- all wave forms are encoded, decoded, modulated and demodded in software.
But move all the custom hardware into software, and now we can reconfigure as easily as we download patches for our software, or firmware updates for our machines. This is made possible, generally, by the incredible computational power of ordinary general purpose computing. Or, in other words, the need for building custom (expensive!) hardware to solve technical problems decreases as general purpose hardware increases in power.
What can you do with it?And this is all in software, on the computer you are using right now. Go gnu radio!
* Conventional radio
* Spectrum monitoring
* Multichannel -- one app sucks down the whole RF spectrum; AT&T could support all its legacy phones (GSM, CDMA, Analog) on one tower, without any forklift upgrade.
* Morph mode
* Morph on the fly -- a device that reconfigures itself for what you need, sat phone, cell phone, pager, etc, your 802.11b could talk 802.11g once it's invented
* Better spectrum utilization -- listen-before-talk, then choose an unused band. Accommodates legacy users and lets you move forward.
* Cognitive radio -- minimal power, shaped xmission, etc
Well, his message is getting through. Salon has an introductory piece on the "there's enough bandwidth for everyone" utopian arguments of the oft mentioned David P. Reed. Still, the actual math is so hard - assuming you dig in deeper than the Salon article - that I doubt many people have much beyond a metaphorical understanding of what he's talking about.
Slashdot posted the story. Here's the +5 rated comments (the best comments.) They almost universally savage Reed (in the best/worst tradition of /. commenting.) The message here seems to be: "this guy doesn't know what he's talking about" which is sort of what I was scared of.
Still, while a close reading of all the objections is instructive, I do think most people misunderstand his point. No doubt Salon's intro isn't the best text to base a technical refutation on. Sure, we can't do what Reed says with today's radios. But Reed isn't claiming we can.
Part of what he's saying is that software defined radios are going to allow this sort of thing to happen. Assuming we can build (program) them. And assuming we can change the (soon to be) out of date broadcasting regulations that would disallow such devices. And the first step in changing such regulation is to have people believe that something better is possible.
So perhaps he's overly optimistic (as most /. comments complained) but I don't think he's wrong. Or at least not yet. Let's see how the software comes along over the next year. But a little optimism might well be warranted. I think getting the idea that something wildly better is possible into non technical people's heads will be for the better. And it sure won't hurt anything, since all these claims will have to be demonstrated eventually anyway. It's not like we're going to dismantle the FCC until there's some running code and working gear.
I know you want more mesh network links. Admit it. Here's a simple, business oriented overview from Glen Fleishman. And here's a technical .pdf with details on why these networks might not scale so well. Again, this is over my head, but this doesn't seem like a show stopper. I have the impression we can just do some hand waving here and mumble some stuff about how faster microprocessors and much smarter software defined radios will make it all possible. (links via HTP)
So I have been thinking more in terms of science fiction. Not that I could write a book, but it's fun to think about. My story would have these whiz-bang wireless communicators. They're cigarette pack size, except all the corners are rounded. Like a bar of soap at perfect mid life. Fits right in your hand.
It uses a software defined radio. Speaks any flavor of wireless you download into it. It's all screen on the outside. High resolution. Touch sensitive.
It's our latest techo approximation of the philosopher's stone. Or at least the pocket Palantiri. Now what will the user interface look like?
Here's another open spectrum overview, this time with more focus on the technology side of things, which right now means software defined radio. This is what will change everything (yeah, I know, it usually doesn't work out like that, but I enjoy believing such things...)
DailyWireless has links to some of the players in the industry.