PAR4CR · Partnership for the Development of Cognitive Radio

Periodic Report Summary - PAR4CR (Partnership for the Development of Cognitive Radio)

Project context and objectives As more devices "go wireless" and human wireless networks proliferate at unprecedented speed, more bandwidth and better use of the Radio frequency (RF) spectrum will be required to avoid future "wireless traffic jams". In this context the realisation of cognitive radio (CR) is essential to meet the requirements of future wireless communication infrastructures. Software defined radio (SDR) should be an enabling technology on the path towards CR. For these reasons the European Universities and Industrial Companies have organized a partnership in order to develop software defined radio architectures towards cognitive radio (PAR4CR). The IAPP (Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways) PAR4CR project brings together a consortium of seven major European players to perform a joint research programme and exchange knowledge on technologies crucial for the development of software defined radio and cognitive radio. Current SDR research is focusing on developing wireless communication technology that supports a discrete number of specific radio standards with limited flexibility (multiple narrowband architectures). The PAR4CR research programme addresses improvements around system, architecture and circuit design of SDR to enable its evolution to CR from an integral radio pipe perspective. The research focuses on all aspects of SDR and CR, from antenna via front-end, RF circuits, data conversion and signal processing and their interrelationships in order to achieve the breakthroughs in performance and cost required to make SDR a reality. Moreover, choices between alternative approaches and solutions will be made taking into account the need for having a seamless evolutionary path towards CR. The research will particularly pay attention to system design and development of critical circuits and algorithms. Basic interactions between the Work Packages are indicated in the graph shown in the document "WPs.pfd". One of the important goals of PAR4CR is to facilitate the efficient and effective transfer of knowledge between NXP, Catena, IMST, TNO, ITE, ESIEE and TU/e. The scope of PAR4CR is to forge a long term relationship in the area of a new generation (software defined and cognitive) radio systems, thereby boosting technological research and development aimed at meeting the growing demand from users for new multimedia services and general mobility. Based on the joint research programme the partners will implement an intensive exchange and collaboration. The overall goal of PAR4CR is to develop a new architecture for software defined radio as a step towards cognitive radio based on wideband operation of transmitter and receiver: from antenna via front-end, RF circuits, data conversion and signal processing and their interrelationships in order to achieve the breakthroughs in performance and cost required to make SDR a reality. It is anticipated that the research programme will result in the following main innovations: - Cost reduction of SDR to a level below multi-mode multi-band transceivers; - Performance increase of SDR to a level comparable to single-mode transceivers; - Clear evolutionary roadmap from SDR to CR The PAR4CR project is now well underway. The Strategy and Roadmap efforts have been finalised. Existing solutions have been studied and the main roadblocks for the transmitter and receiver have now been identified. A study on wide band antennas and smart reconfigurable antenna arrays has been started. During first half of the project, 14 exchanges have been started, of which some are already finalised. Furthermore, three researchers have been newly recruited in the network. The work resulted in eight publications and three patent applications.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union