This chapter develops illustrative applications, including the design of a contemporary SDR infrastructure product, the disaster-relief system. I. THE DESIGN PROCESS The implementation of SDR applications can be structured into an SDR design process. This process begins with the definition of a concept of operations (CONOPS), in which functions of the product are identified. The next stage, system definition, includes rapid prototyping and benchmarking. The third stage, system development, includes the implementation of hardware-software components. . | 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 15 Applications This chapter develops illustrative applications including the design of a contemporary SDR infrastructure product the disaster-relief system. I. THE DESIGN PROCESS The implementation of SDR applications can be structured into an SDR design process. This process begins with the definition of a concept of operations CONOPS in which functions of the product are identified. The next stage system definition includes rapid prototyping and benchmarking. The third stage system development includes the implementation of hardware-software components. Acquisition and integration of COTS components and or system-on-a-chip IP characterizes this stage. The expense of coding and documenting software for reuse also may be borne in this stage. The final stage system deployment includes platform upgrades and software downloads with multiple incremental enhancements. The CONOPS provides the foundation for the development of use-cases of object-oriented design with UML. The top-level design constraints must be expressed as an initial set of design rules. The design rules include the degree of openness of the architecture. If the design has an open architecture that supports industry standards then there may be third-party suppliers of hardware and or software for the product. If the design is proprietary the product should be unique because it will not have the value-added features of a robust third-party supplier program. The functions then must be allocated to hardware and software components that can be procured or developed within a market-driven timetable and within the design rules. The node design process is illustrated in Figure 15-1. Physical design addresses the choice of components from the antenna to the user interface. These components may be hardware intensive in
