Agile wireless systems: Design trends, technologies, and challenges

This talk will discuss Design Trends, Technologies, and Challenges in the context of some key applications and domains. In particular, we will focus on aspects of Agile wireless systems that amalgamate the attributes of Software Defined Radios (SDRs) and cognitive radios. Wireless systems and subsystems will continue to be a major market driver, since they are a critical component in the context of several verticals, such as communications, health care, energy, and consumer devices/applications. These systems will increasingly incorporate on-chip broadband antennas, RFMEMS/filters, and High speed RF/Mixed mode circuits, as well as a more traditional assortment of networks, heterogeneous multi-cores and memories. Design techniques, tools and platforms are necessary to assist in the architectural exploration of components and systems operating in the envisioned environment. We will discuss examples of configurable rapid prototyping platforms that have proven very useful in these contexts, and are also being leveraged for simulating the next generation of highly parallel systems. We will highlight several challenges that need to be addressed; these include programming paradigms and compilation tools for parallel heterogeneous systems, computational models that accommodate error-resiliency, and a design technology framework for complex heterogeneous systems.