Reference no: EM132359241

Software-Defined Radio Communications Assignment -

Learning Outcomes -

1. Analyse building blocks of broadband digital transceivers and the role of noise in SDR.

2. Apply knowledge of multirate signal processing, transmission and recovery.

3. Comprehend and compare MIMO and OFDM theories.

Topic: SDR Principles & 16-QAM Simulator Using MATLAB/Simulink

Purpose of the assessment: The purpose of this assignment is to motivate students to seek to understand the modern thinking in digital communication transceiver design, which software-defined radio (SDR), and the principles behind it. The assignment has two parts: Part A and Part B.

Part A -

Every student has to watch the weekly YouTube video on SDR posted on the unit's forum at Moodle site. The student has to formulate one technically-interesting question from the content of the video and post it to the forum for discussions with other students. It is not allowed to post the same question posted by another student. That would be plagiarism. Also, each week every student has to respond to at least one question posted by another student. Students are expected to answer another student's questions so that co-operatively every student understands the subject matter.

Note: each post, either a question or answer, should never be longer than ½ A4 page using 11-point font size.

Description of the assessment:

1. Background - Technology is a fast-paced industry, and digital communication networks are no exceptions. The transmitter and receiver (generically called transceiver) of communication systems have been traditionally operating in hardware. Currently, software-defined radio (SDR) is trying to replace some hardware components by software. This comes with many benefits and challenges. One challenge is that we need very fast sampling functions in ADC/DAC to implement the frontend of radio systems in software. Therefore, currently not every part of the transceiver can be implemented in software, resulting in partially software-controlled radio (SCR).

One of the key technologies for 4G radio communication systems and beyond is called Open Wireless Architecture (OWA). OWA is cable of supporting multiple wireless air interfaces in an open architecture platform using a single piece of "generic" hardware. SDR is aiding the realization of radio convergence. SDR is one form of OWA. Noting that 4G is a group of wireless standards, 4G devices constitute various standards. This can be efficiently realized using SDR technology. Under radio convergence via SDR, we can use the same hardware to implement 4G standards (i.e. LTE-Advanced and Mobile WiMAX/IEEE 802.16m or WirelessMAN-Advanced), 4G forerunners (i.e. LTE, TD-LTE and Mobile WiMAX/IEEE 802.16e) and IEEE LAN standards (IEEE 802.11ac, soon to be followed by the WiGig/ IEEE 802.11ad). This assignment exposes the student to a real-world principles and design of digital SDR, especially how the various functions work in a transceiver.

Sections to be included in the report -

Weekly question formulated - Did the student post any question to the forum in a timely manner, i.e. in the appropriate week?

Technical relevance of question formulated - Is the question posed technically interesting to the subject matter? Did the student reflect on the question?

Critical reflection - Does the question posted by the student demonstrate reflection and understanding of the topic or it was hastily formulated?

Research depth - Does the answer posted by student demonstrate that the student consulted additional references on the topic and used the IEEE referencing style well?

PART B -

i) 16-QAM Simulator Using MATLAB/Simulink

The mobile communication standards GSM Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced have three radio modulation schemes QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM. OFDM technology uses QPSK or QAM symbols for data transmission. This assignment requires student to write MATLAB program to implement the functionality of 16-QAM. Students may also attempt to use Simulink to build 16-QAM. Students are expected to test their MATLAB code and discuss it.

ii) Discus contribution of OFDM and MIMO in modern mobile communication.

Attachment:- Software-Defined Radio Communications Assignment File.rar