The Challenges of Software-Defined Radio Carl Panasik and Chaitali Sengupta The current move to create and adopt third generation (3G) wireless communications standards has raised tremendous expectations among engineers. To some extent, there is a perception that adopting the new standards will result, almost instantaneously, in being able to design a plethora of multi-purpose wireless Internet appliances with features and capabilities far beyond those found in today’s wireless telephones and palmtop organizers. Recent discussion in the industry has suggested that the coming months will bring a kind of super-communications/entertainment appliance | The Application of Programmable DSPs in Mobile Communications Edited by Alan Gatherer and Edgar Ausländer Copyright 2002 John Wiley Sons Ltd ISBNs 0-471-48643-4 Hardback 0-470-84590-2 Electronic 6 The Challenges of Software-Defined Radio Carl Panasik and Chaitali Sengupta The current move to create and adopt third generation 3G wireless communications standards has raised tremendous expectations among engineers. To some extent there is a perception that adopting the new standards will result almost instantaneously in being able to design a plethora of multi-purpose wireless Internet appliances with features and capabilities far beyond those found in today s wireless telephones and palmtop organizers. Recent discussion in the industry has suggested that the coming months will bring a kind of super-communications entertainment appliance. With form factors and battery life similar to today s wireless phones this system will deliver high-fidelity audio and full-motion video from the Internet while it also provides voice communications capabilities and serves such as a Bluetooth transceiver. It will access the wireless LAN at the office serve as a cellular phone during the commute and connect to another wireless LAN at home. It will recognize local wireless infrastructures such as high-speed data kiosks in airports. Most important it will communicate flawlessly with the infrastructure anywhere in the world where users choose to take it. Embedded in this set of expectations is a reasonable amount of fact. 3G appliances certainly will deliver features and capabilities beyond those currently available 2G and recent introductions of . Recent advances in Digital Signal Processor DSP technology will enable high-fidelity audio and full-motion video in handheld wireless appliances in the near future. Bluetooth technology is ready to hit the streets. But the idea that a super wireless communications appliance will arrive any time soon is pure fiction. Current technology does
