IEEE Communications Magazine
Cognitive radio: brain-empowered wireless communications
IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
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We discuss implementation aspects of a software-defined radio system that allows for dynamic waveform reconfiguration during runtime without interrupting data-flow processing. Traditional software-defined radio systems execute a waveform statically, exactly as it is programmed. Reconfiguration is provided by executing a different waveform, which requires the system to stop processing data while reconfiguration occurs, and also may incur an unacceptable delay for some applications. Recent research has demonstrated basic reconfiguration by programming multiple branches into a waveform and dynamically switching between branches. This technique requires redundant resources and in general cannot be expanded to encompass all possible waveforms of interest, but, if implemented carefully, could be made to seamlessly process data. We propose a system that allows for dynamic insertion and removal of entire waveforms, individual constituent blocks, and block algorithm implementations tailored to specific processors. Our system performs this reconfiguration while maintaining processing state, seamlessly without interrupting data-processing, and with only the resources necessary for the given waveform and processors. In order to leverage this new level of reconfigurability, we created a new system component: a supervisor. This system supervisor monitors the state of each processor and waveform execution, and moves computations among available processors as their loads, capabilities, and block algorithm implementations allow. An example using a simple supervisor is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our system.