HANDS ON TRAINING ON SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO, KPR Institute Engineering and Technology, Autonomous Engineering Institution, Coimbatore, India

Students were able to transmit signals using GNU radio

Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been traditionally implemented in analog hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system. While the concept of SDR is not new, the rapidly evolving capabilities of digital electronics render practical many processes which were once only theoretically possible. A basic SDR system may consist of a personal computer equipped with a sound card, or other analog-to-digital converter, preceded by some form of RF front end. Significant amounts of signal processing are handed over to the general-purpose processor, rather than being done in special-purpose hardware (electronic circuits). Such a design produces a radio which can receive and transmit widely different radio protocols (sometimes referred to as waveforms) based solely on the software used. 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. In the long term, software-defined radios are expected by proponents like the Wireless Innovation Forum to become the dominant technology in radio communications. SDRs, along with software defined antennas are the enablers of the cognitive radio. This course is handled by R. Balamurugesh,CEO, Silicon Systems and Mr S Raja, Product Development Manager, Silicon Systems, Kalapatti, Coimbatore-641 048. The event started at 8.45am and ends at 4.15pm. Students were very much interactive throughout the session and completed the project assigned to them. Students are asked to prepare their report and submit for assessment.