SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO: THE TRANSITION FROM DEFENSE TO COMMERCIAL MARKETS

Software Defined Radio (SDR) until now has been seen as a military technology with a limited market for commercial applications. The commercial use of SDR has been restricted to providing ‘partial software upgradeability’ within a given family of wireless standards. This has been due to technological bottlenecks at the RF front end and its inability to be reconfigurable. However, with recent innovations in enabling wideband RF front ends and soft transceivers, SDR can move beyond ‘partial reconfigurability’ to ‘multiprotocol multiband reconfigurability’. SDR in its new commercial avatar can allow for a smaller hardware footprint leading to lower costs and a shorter time to market. This paper looks at the innovations that are driving this transition and analyzes the critical factors and market dynamics needed to ensure its commercial market success. The paper also provides a realistic discussion around the ability of SDR to initiate disruptive changes in the wireless business model.