The SpectrumWare Approach to Wireless Signal Processing
to appear in Wireless Networks, 1996
Authors
David L. Tennenhouse
Vanu G. Bose
Telemedia Networks and Systems Group
Laboratory for Computer Science, MIT
Abstract
The SpectrumWare project is applying a software oriented approach to
wireless communication and distributed signal processing. Advances in
processor and analog-to-digital conversion technology have made it possible to
implement virtual radios that directly sample wide bands of the RF spectrum,
and process these samples in application software. The elimination of
dedicated hardware introduces tremendous flexibility into a wireless
communications system. However, our approach goes further than the software
implementation of traditional signal processing functions. We use processor and
network memory to temporally decouple the sample streams from the software
modules so that the bulk of the processing can be realized within virtual time
programming environments. Decoupling relaxes the temporal constraints on the
processing algorithms and their execution. This paper describes the
SpectrumWare concept, our experimental approach, and the implications that this
approach has for wireless signal processing algorithms.
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