Congratulations to the GNU developers !!
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“No-knob” radio: the future of Warfighter communications?
Jan 27, 2010
By Sharon Rushen, CERDEC Public Affairs
FORT MONMOUTH, N.J. - U.S. Army engineers in collaboration with
their Navy counterparts hope to open the gates of cognitive radio
development to academia, industry and other DoD organizations by
building a universal radio test-bed this year.
The Communications-Electronics Research, Development and
Engineering Center’s Software Defined Radio lab will work with the
Navy Research Lab to transfer previous development done on the
Joint Tactical Radio System to the GNU Radio’s open source, free
software environment.
Through the GNU platform which is inexpensive and universally
accessible, universities, contract companies and government
agencies can use a common platform to advance the state of
cognitive radio software. The transition to the GNU platform will
help ease collaboration efforts with other organizations who
frequently opt to use ‘grass-roots’ hardware for programming due
to the comparably high-cost and limited accessibility of JTRS radios.
Additionally, the GNU platform will enable the SDR lab to conduct
large lab tests and field tests, rather than having to simulate
larger-scale network testing. The cost constraints associated with
the JTRS radio prohibit larger-scale networking, limiting the
number of radios they can test at one time, explained SDR lab team
lead, Tim Leising.
Through funding provided by the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, Director of Defense, Research and Engineering, the SDR
lab team will collaborate with the Navy Research Lab, to start
building a universal GNU radio test bed this year. Once the
test-bed is completed, they will work together to make it
remote-accessible using the Defense Research Engineering Network
to house the software platform, allowing DoD organizations and
external research partners to test their software on it from any
location.
CERDEC will facilitate a dial-in Q&A session for media
participants to interact with leading U.S. Army researchers
involved in developing the GNU test-bed. To participate in the
media round table, contact CERDEC Public Affairs: (732) 427-1926.
The Communications-Electronics Research, Development and
Engineering Center (CERDEC) is one of the research and development
centers under the U.S. Army’s Research, Development and
Engineering Command (RDECOM).
The Software-Defined Radio (SDR) lab is part of CERDEC’s Space and
Terrestrial Communications Directorate.