The SpectrumWare approach to wireless signal processing

The SpectrumWare project is applying a software oriented approach to wireless communication and distributed signal processing. Advances in processor and analog-to-digital conversion technology have made it possible to implementvirtual radios that directly sample wide bands of the RF spectrum and process these samples in application software. The elimination of dedicated hardware introduces tremendous flexibility into a wireless communication system. Our approach goes further than the software implementation of traditional signal processing functions. We use processor and network memory to temporally decouple the sample streams from the software modules so that the bulk of the processing can be realized within virtual time programming environments. Decoupling relaxes the temporal constraints on the processing algorithms and their execution. This paper describes the SpectrumWare concept, our experimental approach, and the implications that this approach has for wireless signal processing algorithms.

[1]  Andrew C Payne,et al.  Are DSP Chips Obsolete , 2002 .

[2]  J. A. Wepman,et al.  Analog-to-digital converters and their applications in radio receivers , 1995, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[3]  Brian N. Bershad,et al.  The interaction of architecture and operating system design , 1991, ASPLOS IV.

[4]  A. Brown,et al.  Digital L-band receiver architecture with direct RF sampling , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 IEEE Position, Location and Navigation Symposium - PLANS'94.

[5]  D I G I T a L , 1997 .

[6]  David Wetherall.  An interactive programming system for media computation , 1994 .

[7]  John G. Proakis,et al.  Digital Communications , 1983 .

[8]  David Wetherall,et al.  A software-oriented approach to the design of media processing environments , 1994, 1994 Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems.

[9]  D. G. Messerschmitt,et al.  Power control for variable QOS on a CDMA channel , 1994, Proceedings of MILCOM '94.

[10]  David Wetherall,et al.  The VuSystem: a programming system for visual processing of digital video , 1994, MULTIMEDIA '94.

[11]  R. I. Lackey,et al.  Speakeasy: the military software radio , 1995, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[12]  J. Mitola,et al.  Software radios: Survey, critical evaluation and future directions , 1992, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

[13]  Brian N. Bershad,et al.  The interaction of architecture and operating system design , 1991, ASPLOS IV.