Introduction to Software Radio in Automotive

Software-defined radio (SDR) refers to a method of wireless communication in which both the transmitter's modulation and the receiver's demodulation are done using software. Each SDR receiver adds an analog to digital (A/D) signal converter through the antenna or an intermediate interface.

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Mixing and baseband processing are done digitally and controlled by software. The main advantage of such an operating mode is its high degree of flexibility, since the software can be run entirely on a common hardware platform set up for any kind of receiver. Designers can use this common hardware platform to extract a set of functions common to all receivers, or when adding a new receiver, the designer can choose to reset the hardware as needed.

Figure 1 shows a typical automotive SDR system. The receiver of the SDR is composed of a channel processing module and a decoding module. The channel processing module uses digitized downconverters, CIC filters, and FIR filters for channel selection, filtering, and balancing operations. The required channel selection modules are also different for different receiver settings, and these different modules can be loaded onto Altera's CycloneTM devices under the control of the SDR controller. Similarly, an ARM® CPU and a processor subsystem can reload the logic operator with the specified decode module in the ExcaliburTM device, after which a waveform module processes the decoded audio signal.

Altera offers a range of IP cores such as Numerically Controlled Oscillator (NCO), Finite Impulse Response (FIR), Infinite Impulse Response (IIR), Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and coordinate mapping. These can be used to implement channel processing, codec, and waveform modules. Designers can also use the following IP cores, Controller Area Network (CAN) and Universal Serial Bus (USB) controllers on Altera's Excalibur devices or 32-bit Nios® II RISC embedded soft core processors in Cyclone devices. To perform the functions of the SDR control module.

Figure 1. Automotive Software Radio

Note to Figure 1:

UART = Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter

The efficient architecture of Cyclone devices has made its performance and price levels far beyond the demand for price-sensitive automotive applications. As a result, the Cyclone family of products and solutions provide industry designers with unparalleled power and competitive price levels relative to ASICs.