T9: Software Defined Radios: technological solutions and challenges paving the way towards cognitive radios
Presenters: Antoine Dejonghe, IMEC Wireless Research
Liesbet Van der Perre, University of Antwerp
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Abstract
The combination of the increasing need for functional flexibility in communication systems (the number of wireless standards to be supported is large and can be expected to grow) and the exploding cost of system-on-chip design will make implementation of wireless standards on reconfigurable radios the only viable option in the coming years. SDR implementations will offer higher flexibility (multi-purpose multi-standard platform, reprogrammable in the field) at lower cost (product development and manufacturing cost lowered thanks to better time-to-market, higher chipset production volume and lower number of components to integrate). A big challenge is to make these platforms energy-efficient. A two-step holistic approach is advocated for this purpose, combining efficient design and efficient operation.
In parallel, there is a growing need to make next-generation terminals more intelligent and adaptive. Through appropriate radio management, these terminals should make flexible and efficient use of network/spectrum resources, so as to enable connectivity across complex and spectrum-constrained wireless networking environments. This has lead to the concept of cognitive radio, which is defined on the most generic way as a radio that can autonomously and dynamically adapt its transmission parameters based on interaction with and learning of the environment in which it operates. A second acceptation of cognitive radio (often referred to as opportunistic radio), a radio that co-exists with legacy wireless systems using the same spectrum resources without significantly interfering with them. Technological enablers paving the way in this direction are presented.
Biographies
Antoine Dejonghe received the M. Sc. Degree in Electrical Engineering (summa cum laude) and the Ph.D. Degree from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He was with the Communications and Remote Sensing Laboratory of UCL from 2000 to 2004, as a Research Fellow of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS). Since 2004, he is Senior Research Engineer in the Wireless Research Group of the Inter-university Microelectronics Center (IMEC), Leuven, Belgium.
He is currently leading research activities towards the design of energy-efficient software-defined radio systems and their extension towards cognitive radio. Antoine Dejonghe is an author and co-author of over 50 scientific publications.
Liesbet Van der Perre received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the K.U.Leuven, Belgium, in 1992. The research for her thesis was completed at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Telecommunications in Paris. She graduated summa cum laude with a PhD in electrical engineering form the same university in 1997. Liesbet earned an award from IBM in 1986, and she received a study-visit scholarship for study in the United States from the Fina Maecenas Foundation.
Her work in the past focused on radio propagation modelling, system design and digital modems for high-speed wireless communications. She was a system architect in IMEC‚s OFDM ASICs development, which was nominated as one of the IEEE International Solid State Circuit Conference‚s (ISSCC‚s) ŒBest of 50 Years‚ papers. Consequently, she was the project leader for IMEC‚s low power Turbo codec. Currently, she is the scientific director of wireless research group in IMEC‚s, comprising teams of researchers in the fields of digital baseband solutions, RF front-ends, cross-layer optimization, and ultra low power radios. She‚s the project leader for the digital baseband Software Defined Radio, and a public speaking coach for IMEC staff. Also, she was a part-time professor at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, till 2004. She‚s an author and co-author of over 150 scientific publications published in conference proceedings, journals, and books. She is a member of the expert group of the ŒeMobility‚ technology platform, which created a proposal for a ŒStrategic Research Agenda‚ for the 7FP.
