A Software Defined Radio is a radio receiver that is reconfigurable by software. This reconfigurability leads to flexibility that can be used to offer more functionality to the user. Also, because common reconfigurable hardware can be used for very diverse radio interfaces, production and logistics can be faster and cheaper. In our Software Defined Radio project we aim at a receiver that is able to receive signals of any contemporary or future radio standard. However, because we need tangible specifications in order to design, we have chosen to implement a combination of two rather different standards: Bluetooth and HiperLAN/2. Both the analogue and the digital/software parts are included in the design. A CMOS integrated wideband analogue front-end containing a low noise amplifier, downconversion mixers and filters has been designed. This front-end\ud
is connected to a PCB that contains two analogue-to-digital convertors and a sample rate convertor (SRC). The output of this board is connected to a standard PC through a digital I/O board with PCI bus. Software on this PC performs the demodulation.\ud
We conclude that an analog wide-band front-end with a flexible SRC combined with appropriate software on an inherently flexible PC forms a promising architecture for Software Defined Radio
