Slashdot Mirror
Linux Powers First Handheld Software Radio
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article at LinuxDevices.com, Vanu Technology is demonstrating what it claims represents the world's first handheld 'software radio' using an iPAQ PDA running Linux at a conference in Washington DC today. Vanu apparently has implemented the signal processing functions on the iPAQ's XScale processor, and their software uses POSIX APIs to make it platform independent. Software radios implement multiple radio standards and frequency bands in software, rather than hardware. A standard iPAQ expansion pack houses the radio transceiver."
This looks really cool, but it seems that the cost will be prohibitive for people who just want to listen to the radio. As the article mentions, the ability to operate on many different formats is probably more geared towards industry uses. Oh, and of course it will save lives because emergency response teams will be able to communicate better ;)
of software radio is the ability to modify the code and tromp all over someone elses legally protected frequency range. Some of the big nonos include sending on ATC (air traffic controll) frequencies and numerous other military and civil service bands.
Someone corect me if I am wrong, but couldn't the transceiver be built with hardware filters on those bands and thus sidestep the issue of broadcast interference? I know this is not as nice as having a fully programmable software radio transmitter, but otherwise I really don't see the FCC granting any kind of production licensing for these.
Anyone else have solutions to this dilemma?
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
Holy cheeses, man, who the hell wants to listen to a $5 transistor radio when you can hear the same thing on $1500 worth of uber-geek gear?
You're looking at this from the wrong level - this thing still has all the hardware to receive RF, the funky thing is that the radio demodulation/modulation et al is programmable. At the band's this is running at, it's not so interesting, but once you get up to 900MHz (and later at 2.4GHz+), you essentially have a device that can communicate with any RF device on its supported bands.
What this means (in the future, with 2.4GHz+ capable devices) is that one device (be it your PDA, mobile phone, PCMCIA card) can be a GSM phone, can be a CDMA phone, can be a 3G phone, can be a CB/commercial/police radio receiver, it could even be used for 802.11b or Bluetooth. The possibilities for software radio are mind boggling. Linux is really irrelevant in the scheme of things, it's essentially just used to bolt the stuff together - it's the underlying technology that is impressive.
If you've read the article, it's not just an reinvention of wheel:
According to Vanu, unlike traditional hardware radios, which are limited to one specific type of communication service, "software radio" technology enables a single wireless device to implement multiple radio standards and frequency bands, thus eliminating the ened for multiple hardware radios when communication with multiple radio services is required.
Check the local hardware shop. A hardware with comparable functionalities is very expensive. I'm sure the manufacturer has targeted this specific market segment correctly.
Compare it with a home-use radio is just like comparing a professional camera with an instant-camera.
Someone else got it right. This is more like being able to configure a particular device to do any wireless standard without requiring custom RF hardware, ASICs, and DSPs to do the signal processing and modulation/demodulation for each technology it handles. All the protocols and such (if we're talking about something like a GSM/TDMA/CDMA phone) would already be handled in software anyway. It's the low layer h/w receiver, transmitter, and signal processing (i.e. radio) stuff that's expensive to design and build and fit into portable devices. It sounds like this is their reference design and probably their intention is to try and license this technology to PDA and mobile phone makers.
The current configuration of the device is said to support commercial analog FM radio services, including Family Band Radio as well as the public safety APCO 25 digital standard, with future prototypes under development that will include operational capabilities of up to 900 MHz and support for cellular and PCS standards such as TDMA and GSM.
With such a huge frequency range under its belt and the fact that it's all process via software all it needs is some voice recognition software and it could become the ultimate scanner/big brother toy. Simply put, you enter a few key words, and it scans the airways for you looking for them until it finds them and either logs it or tunes you into it. The NSA has had stuff like this for listening in on international call, but I don't know if I like the idea of my neighbour being able to selectively listen in on my calls especially with such power...
me->Hi I'd like to buy blah
staff-> will that be Visa or MasterCard
me-> Visa...
person with smart scanner->Chaching!
The possibilities for software radio are mind boggling.
And the short length of time your batteries will last will boggle the mind even more. Using a general purpose CPU to do all of that comm stuff would use many times more power then dedicated ASIC's. To find out how much this would suck, insert an 802.11b card into the PC Card sleeve on an iPaq, do a constant ping, and run an app that utilized 100% cpu.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You guys are all missing the point. If you have a software radio you have something that is inherently able to adapt to the spectral environment that it currently "sees". Develop logic that deals with interference, and you've eliminated the concept of management bands and spectrum management agencies. You've essentially automated the process that these agencies seek to fufill, and you've eliminated the politics, lobbying mechanisms and the grip that the old world broadcast industry has on the raw resource that should be essentially free for everyone to use.
Some people may argue that you've taken revenue (licensing) away from central government. That is true. But my belief is that Central Government should be focussing on developing innovative smart technology rather than maintaining archaic processes. Revenue through process rather than red-tape.
Are radiowaves the electromagnetic equivalent of GNU bandwidth?
Check here and here for clue.
somewhere in texas, a village is missing it's idiot