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In the words of fallen Apple visionary, Steve Jobs, technology is indisputably the most dynamic trend as seen in modern human history. The world is presently undergoing rapid technological advances of an unprecedented scale. Technological advancement calls for novel innovations including newer design ideas. The switch from cable technology to the wireless spectrum, for instance, is an indication of how design and technology go hand in hand. Projected trends indicate that as people approach the year 2020, software radio will have become the new landscape for commercial and military radio employed in a variety of equipment from handheld devices and battery-powered sensors to plugged-in devices such as base stations https://manyessays.com/article-critique-writing.

With the projected patterns, wireless design will seemingly play a more essential role in future data communications than the current trends indicate. As an access protocol, wireless design is unmatched owing to the ease of connection and ubiquity of services and as such, it seems poised to be the key means through which people access the World Wide Web. Wireless technology appears to be in the midst of a crucial phase in its technical evolution, a commercial transition from radios with behavior fixed in hardware to radios with behavior determined by software.

With this transition, flexible radios are capable of fully exploiting the radio spectrum to distribute data faster and more dependably. Sources indicate that the research community has been anticipating and envisioning this scenario since the early 1990s and it is has finally arrived. Regrettably, radio engineering, computer science, and public-policy advocates appear to be improperly prepared – and equipped - to take advantage of it.

Wireless is without a doubt a vital piece – some might even say the most crucial aspect – of the present world of data communications. It is likely, as well, that wireless will remain as such in the future. The most reliable source for this is Craig Partridge’s article dubbed Realizing the Future of Wireless Data Communications. The source is especially useful for this paper since it offers a holistic approach that touches every aspect of the problem. This includes the evolution of wireless technology, its applicability, as well as benefits and potential shortcomings. For most crucial topics, including the approved use of the spectrum, radio behavior, and even how inadequately the spectrum is being utilized today, there is barely sufficient information at times to be excited or to make an informed decision about the best means of realizing it.

With Microsoft Research Software (Sora) radios, the Wireless Network after Next (WNAN), Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) leading the way, radio engineers are well on the verge of having spectacular radio platforms on which to run software as it appears. Regulators are starting to proffer a spectrum for experimentation with these radios. ComReg, which is Ireland’s spectrum regulator, is on the lead with licensed spectrums for research and after having publicly declared its readiness and willingness to make more spectrums available in 2006. The most urgent call at the moment is adequate research into languages to explain radio behavior.

Software engineers most visibly require ways to express a protocol to assorted radios in the field so that they can instantaneously run the protocol. It ought to be feasible to inscribe a new protocol and to subsequently deploy it to radios from multiple manufacturers within minutes. It may take hours - at most - if regulatory approval is required. Research is fundamental since it enables software radios to use the spectrum suitably. Researchers have various paper solutions. However, there is only one implemented approach - incorporated into products from Shared Spectrum - except there is merely limited experience.

This problem requires a great deal of attention. For instance, federal research agencies should fund various efforts to facilitate building a chipset radio. As highlighted here, some exigent setbacks look like they could be easier to resolve on a chipset radio that is if we can only just build one. Likewise, there is also a growing need for researchers to carry out more detailed measurements of the obtainable spectrum to better comprehend the amount of it used worldwide. Additionally, it is important to understand the available bandwidth the underutilized spectrum represents, i.e. experiments that not only measure energy but also approximate what protocols would work best in a specified location and the data rates they are capable of providing. In the event that this is accomplished in, say, the next five years, this research would offer the information required to make informed choices with reference to unlocking the wireless spectrum for data communications. Delay is simply unwarranted given the current state of affairs.

The Transition from Hardware to Software

Projected trends indicate that as we approach the year 2020, software radio will have become the new landscape for commercial and military radio employed in a variety of devices from handheld devices and battery-powered sensors to plugged-in devices such as base stations. For software radio, virtually all functions from the media access layer, such as carrier sense multiple access and time-division multiplexing, to the physical layer of frequencies and coding, such as PSK and QAM, are both determined and changeable in real time by software running the radio.

Software radio is not a novel phenomenon per se having been considered the future of military radio in the US since the mid 1990s as mentioned earlier. Software radio is slowly descending upon the US Military today. With time, they will also move into the mainstream market in the estimated timeframe of less than a decade – it could be sooner given that the planet is at the verge of a technological breakthrough whose scale is nothing short of unprecedented. In the mid 1990s, software radio was the size of a small refrigerator, which went for close for $100,000. Today, software radio goes for roughly $500 and it is the size of a computer battery. Examples include more expensive Microsoft Research Software (Sora) radios, the Wireless Network after Next (WNAN), Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP).

Radio chipsets bearing programmable features are much cheaper. They are also incorporated into consumer Wi-Fi products the best example being programmable base-station products from Picochip. In view of the current trends, it is realistic to anticipate fully programmable radio chipsets by 2020. Likewise, it is reasonable to expect that these programmable radio chipsets will be accessible at prices that will be consistent with consumer products by then. The unmatched flexibility that comes with software radios is perhaps the most marvelous phenomenon in modern technological history. In the article, the author notes, they – software radios - are chameleons, running a telephony protocol (such as CDMA) one moment and a data communication protocol (such as Wi-Fi) the next. This flexibility comes from the fact that the radio’s behavior is determined by software. In addition, software control alters the innovation pace. In the traditional (customary) hardware world, altering the radio’s behavior presupposes waiting an estimated six months or longer for invention of new hardware. In the software world, on the other hand, change comes overnight, i.e. as fast as a programmer can debug and compile.

The World of Software Radio

In light of preceding studies, what would one say is different – or special - in a world where software radios are the typical radios? The fact that a consumer would no longer buy a wireless protocol when procuring the device is the most obvious reason. In a software radio world, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth would be the applets any given PDA could run. Given that reason, the idea that a PDA manufacturer would advertise or promote support for either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi makes absolutely no sense in a software radio world. Conversely, the center of attention would be on the PDA’s radio processing power, expressed in field programmable gate array (FPGA) or digital signal processor (DSP) or capabilities. Recasting this observation as an illustrative scenario, suppose when people arrive in a foreign country their PDAs would automatically download and start running the right phone and data-communications protocols for that country. In the event that the protocols change unexpectedly, the PDA purely loads the innovative versions (through Wi-Fi) in the morning.

While indoors requires wireless network, the PDA downloads the protocols from the local base station often through Wi-Fi, which in this case serves as a legacy protocol to download the new protocols. As all this occurs, no action is required by the PDA’s user. The other difference – to answer the questioned posed earlier – is the available bandwidth. When an application requires more wireless bandwidth, it simply requests and software radio provides more. As this happens, the software radio scans the wireless spectrum searching for unused frequencies and concurs with its peer radio - such as the base station - to utilize an unused frequency to present the necessary bandwidth. In this projected future world, software radios would provide consumers with wireless communication that is not limited to data-communications bandwidth or any particular set of protocols.