Enabling Virtual Radio Functions on Software Defined Radio for Future Wireless Networks

Wei Liu, Joao F. Santos, Jonathan van de Belt, Xianjun Jiao, Ingrid Moerman, Johann Marquez-Barja, Luiz DaSilva, Sofie Pollin
2020 Wireless personal communications  
Today's wired networks have become highly flexible, thanks to the fact that an increasing number of functionalities are realized by software rather than dedicated hardware. This trend is still in its early stages for wireless networks, but it has the potential to improve the network's flexibility and resource utilization regarding both the abundant computational resources and the scarce radio spectrum resources. In this work we provide an overview of the enabling technologies for network
more » ... guration, such as Network Function Virtualization, Software Defined Networking, and Software Defined Radio. We review frequently used terminology such as softwarization, virtualization, and orchestration, and how these concepts apply to wireless networks. We introduce the concept of Virtual Radio Function, and illustrate how softwarized/virtualized radio functions can be placed and initialized at runtime, allowing radio access technologies and spectrum allocation schemes to be formed dynamically. Finally we focus on embedded Software-Defined Radio as an end device, and illustrate how to realize the placement, initialization and configuration of virtual radio functions on such kind of devices.
doi:10.1007/s11277-020-07245-x fatcat:aya64hhiyrdw5pt5ewrxgxk35y