Software Radio

A software-defined radio (SDR) system is a radio communication system which uses software for the modulation and demodulation of radio signals.

An SDR performs significant amounts of signal processing in a general purpose computer, or a reconfigurable piece of digital electronics. The goal of this design is to produce a radio that can receive and transmit a new form of radio protocol just by running new software.

Software radios have significant utility for the military and cell phone services, both of which must serve a wide variety of changing radio protocols in real time.

The hardware of a software-defined radio typically consists of a superheterodyne RF front end which converts RF signals from and to analog IF signals, and analog to digital converter and digital to analog converters which are used to convert a digitised IF signal from and to analog form, respectively.

Software-defined radio can currently be used to implement simple radio modem technologies. In the long run, software-defined radio is expected by its proponents to become the dominant technology in radio communications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_radio

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