Architecture Evolution This chapter will convey a deeper understanding of the roots of the software radio. This includes the technical evolution that has resulted in today’s emphasis on SDR. And it includes the management motivations toward realizing appropriately tailored implementations. The chapter begins with an introduction to technology-demographics, a method for studying architecture. | Software Radio Architecture Object-Oriented Approaches to Wireless Systems Engineering Joseph Mitola III Copyright 2000 John Wiley Sons Inc. ISBNs 0-471-38492-5 Hardback 0-471-21664-X Electronic 2 Architecture Evolution This chapter will convey a deeper understanding of the roots of the software radio. This includes the technical evolution that has resulted in today s emphasis on SDR. And it includes the management motivations toward realizing appropriately tailored implementations. The chapter begins with an introduction to technology-demographics a method for studying architecture. This includes a historical perspective on radio architecture which establishes the software radio as a demographic phenomenon. The chapter then characterizes the need for software-radio architecture. The commercial sector and the military sector share many common interests. They also differ in important ways that will be described. Because of the intense interest of these two sectors and because of the fragmentation of industry into competing groups there are competing goals for software radio evolution within standards organizations. These goals are considered in some detail since they set the stage for the competition of technical ideas. The chapter concludes with a roadmap of software-radio architecture evolution. I. TECHNOLOGY-DEMOGRAPHICS Demographics is the science of vital and social statistics as of the births deaths diseases marriages etc. of populations 55 . Demographics identifies major trends in human history. Demographics for example identified the departure of populations from the farms of the United States to the cities after the turn of the century. Demographics later identified the flight of populations from the cities to the suburbs. Technology-demographics 9 analogously is concerned with major shifts in technology. The transition of logic and control electronics from vacuum tubes to transistors is one example of such a shift. Identifying these shifts is important .
