PAGE TITLE
Overview
PAGE SUMMARY
The flow of data within hardware-implemented baseband kernels is inherently regular for all communication standards, which helps designers build fast, synchronized, and optimized baseband kernels on FPGAs. These architectures, however, are often strongly tied to the specific standards they are built for and are difficult to change (in terms of coding rates, modulation, and subcarrier sizes) without substantial effort due to synchronization and data-rate issues. This substantially drives up the cost and reduces the efficiency of rapid prototyping. Software Defined Radio (SDR) systems overcome the inflexible nature of hardware systems, however lack the speed needed for real-time operation. Recognizing the deficiencies of existing systems, a team of Drexel researchers have developed the Drexel Software Defined Communication (SDC) platform. The SDC platform defines a flexible radio where the hardware itself has room for flexibility through a software/data driven interface, thereby enabling rapid prototyping directly on hardware. The SDC achieves this with an OFDM pipeline comprising codec, modulation, interleaving, piloting, channel estimation, and IFFT stages in which each stage can be configured at design time or at run time to accommodate different standards as well as different configuration settings within a standard. This flexibility is achieved by a novel design of the overall pipeline to be insensitive to the latencies incurred by individual stages using the concept of stallable stages. Drexel University is seeking partners interested in the further development and commercialization of this technology.
APPLICATIONS
TITLE: Applications
Software Defined Communications
Baseband Kernel Development – Rapid Prototyping
ADVANTAGES
TITLE:Advantages
Flexibility - supports rapid prototyping by allowing communications modules to be easily tuned, changed and re-engineered
Speed- Supports real-time operation as realized with purely hardware-based implementations
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Commercialization Opportunities
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Contact Information
Robert B. McGrath, Ph.D.
Senior Associate Vice Provost
Office of Technology Commercialization
Drexel University
3180 Chestnut Street, Ste. 104
The Left Bank
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: 215-895-0303
E-mail: RBM26@Drexel.edu