SDR Equipment in Future Mobile Networks

This paper presents the SDR issues to be addressed in a future heterogeneous environment covering also the IP networks. The new project SCOUT (Smart user-Centric cOmmUnication environmenT) will consider this as a key issue. For a comprehensive view the different future research topics and initial concepts are highlighted. One of the major issues to be solved will be the detailed definition of the split of intelligence between the reconfigurable SDR terminals and the networks. In particular a suitable network architecture based on IP paradigms as for example developed in MWIF needs to be further developed, which supports reconfigurable terminals and access networks, manages software download traffic, provides reconfiguration support and facilitates Joint Radio Resource Management (JRRM) covering spectrum sharing. SDR principles and research of IP based networks must be jointly tackled in order to have an increase of capability and versatility of future mobile radio networks. A detailed insight into the important domains is presented in this paper, thereby concentrating on network-centric and terminal-centric support functions enabling reconfigurability of SDR equipments.