Extensible Affordable Software Defined Radio with Cross-Band Cross-Protocol Capability

Acadia Optronics, LLC, in partnership with the University of Kansas, proposes to develop a hybrid reconfigurable Software-Defined-Radio (SDR) architecture in which plug-in, front-end, rf modules interface to powerful, reconfigurable processing hardware and software through high-throughput interconnects. The complexity of the plug-in modules may range from simple antennas, to complete communication systems (e.g. 802.11b/g/n), depending on the availability of COTS chipsets/hardware. The interface specifications between the plug-in modules and the reconfigurable hardware (FPGAs) will be flexible enough to support analog-rf, or digitized-data transmission, depending on the degree of signal processing in the plug-in module itself. The FPGAs will be interfaced to the host operating system through the use of high-bandwidth PCI-Express x8 interfaces, which each provide an aggregate throughput of 16 Gb/s. This hybrid architecture, benefitting from recent developments in communication interfaces, FPGA processing power, and COTS products, will be powerful, flexible, and low cost.