Tutorials

TU03: Building a Software Defined Radio
Instructor: Gary Minden and Joseph B. Evans, The University of Kansas, USA

Wednesday 5 April 2006
9:00 – 12:30

The promise of software defined radios (SDRs), that is radios that use software to define the signal processing, control, and management of the radio resources and network services, is immense. The conjunction of wide bandwidth radio circuits, significant processing logic, and general processor capacity allows us to consider moving complex signal processing, radio control, and network management functions into software from hardware. This in turn allows the research community to drastically re-think how radio systems are organized, operated, and utilize radio spectrum.

This tutorial will focus on the process of building a SDR using the KU Agile Radio as an example. The tutorial is organized in three parts. Part I will focus on the architecture, requirements, and design for SDRs. Part II will focus on implementing signal processing functions on FPGAs, embedded processors, and control processors. And, Part III will focus on integrating signal processing, radio configuration, and radio control and management functions into a comprehensive SDR. The presentation will combine abstract designs with actual implementations.

Gary J. Minden is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Kansas. He received the B.S.E.E. degree in 1973 and the Ph.D. degree in 1982, both from the University of Kansas.

From 1971 through 1978 he was a Research Engineer at the University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc. During that period he worked on problems in the areas of image processing systems, multi-processor computer systems, and general systems theory. From 1978 to 1980 he was a Vice President of CHILD, Inc. where he was a co-designer of the LIGHT-50 computer graphic terminal. In August of 1981 he joined the University of Kansas, Department of Electrical Engineering as an Assistant Professor. During 1983-1989 he lead the implementation of a new Computer Engineering degree program within the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

In 1991 he completed a sabbatical at Digital's System Research Center working on gigabit local area networks. From June 1994 through June 1996 he was on leave at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Technology Office. He served as a Program Manager in the area of high performance networking systems. While at DARPA he formulated and initiated a new research program in Active Networking. He has lead several research projects in high performance wide area networks, mobile wireless systems, adaptive computational systems, and innovative networking protocols. He has served on three Defense Science Board Task Forces: Tactical Battlefield Communications, Spectrum Management, and chaired the Wideband RF Modulation task force.

Dr. Minden's research interests are in the areas of large-scale distributed systems that encompass high performance networks, mobile wireless networks, computing systems, and distributed software systems. Dr. Minden is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers the Association of Computing Machinery, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Joseph B. Evans is the Deane E. Ackers Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Director of Research Information Technology at the University of Kansas. He recently served as a Program Director in the Division of Computer & Network Systems in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the National Science Foundation.

His research interests include mobile and wireless networking, pervasive computing systems, high speed networks, and adaptive computing systems. He has been involved in major national high performance networking testbeds and broadband wireless mobile networking efforts, and has published over 100 journal and conference works. He has been a researcher at the Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory, Cambridge University Computer Laboratory, USAF Rome Laboratories, and AT&T Bell Laboratories. He has been involved in several startups, and was co-founder and member of the board of directors of a network gaming company acquired by Microsoft in 2000. Dr. Evans received his PhD degree from Princeton University in 1989, is a senior member of the IEEE, and a member of the ACM.