Last month BDTI participated in the Software Defined Radio Forum’s first conference. Judging from the presentations given at this conference, software defined radio (SDR) is quickly evolving from an interesting but somewhat academic concept to a mainstream technology.
The main driver of this transformation may be the U.S. Department of Defense’s commitment to SDR. Today’s military operations require communications among different branches of the armed forces, but different armed forces often use incompatible radio systems. To address this problem, the DoD initiated the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program, which seeks to migrate all U.S. armed forces to SDR systems. The goal is to create radio systems that can communicate not only with each other, but also with legacy systems and with the systems of U.S. allies.
The JTRS program has the potential to create a significant new market for communications equipment. The value of the first JTRS contract, which was awarded to a Boeing-led team of contractors this June, could exceed two billion dollars if the government exercises all of the contract options. This initial contract is expected to lead to the installation of SDR systems in over 10,000 military vehicles and aircraft. Eventually, vehicular and airborne SDR installations are expected to exceed 100,000 units. As the DoD expands JTRS to other applications, such as naval and hand-held radios, the program may encompass over 750,000 radios. If the JTRS program reaches this volume, it will reduce the development and per-unit costs associated with SDR and make this technology more attractive for commercial applications.
The types of vendors attending the conference reflected the growing gap between the computational needs of leading-edge communications applications and the capabilities of mainstream processors: FPGA and specialized DSP architecture vendors were more visible than leading DSP or general-purpose processor vendors. The presence of specialized, high-performance DSP core licensors like Morpho, QuickSilver, and picoChip was particularly notable. Historically, high-performance DSP core licensors have had difficulty establishing a foothold in commercial communications markets. It will be interesting to see if these vendors find a warmer welcome in the government-driven SDR market
Add new comment