WHAT ARE THE SPECIFIC LIMITATIONS OF CURRENT SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO TECHNOLOGY?
WHAT ARE THE COST IMPLICATIONS?(8) The use of SDR technology within a radio may be limited by size, weight, power, performance, and the current state of the SDR technology. Early SDR implementations have shown that the multifunction flexibility afforded by a software implementation usually comes at the price of added size, weight, and power, relative to a single function radio implemented in hardware. When an SDR can replace several hardware-based single-function radios, these disadvantages may be acceptable. The computationally most demanding waveform that an SDR must handle will influence its complexity and cost. This is a limitation to the extent that it is currently possible to develop lower-cost hardware-based radios for specific waveform processing functions. Also, it is possible to define complex waveforms that cannot be processed in real time using commercial-off-the-shelf digital signaling processors. Digital signal processing (DSP) techniques are key to the implementation of
