ABSTRACT

In the last years one of the main technological efforts in satellite communications is the integration of digital broadcast services with two-way communications: this is justified by the research of new business perspective and in the increase of technological efficiency.
Traditionally, common air interface (CAI) standards have been rigorously defined in great detail to ensure optimized operation for specific application and to permits the interoperability between the equipment of different manufactures devices. In this context, Software Radio is a possible technology that will facilitate the implementation of adaptive and flexible transmission schemes and protocols of the present and future standard of communications. A relevant element to the development of SR terminals is the remote configuration capability. It represents a complex tradeoff between two elements: the level of details in the description of radio components and the level of abstraction required for a hardware independent remote reconfiguration. The paper presents a SW/HW architecture for SR terminals along with the essential elements of a descriptive language used for the remote configuration process. Tests on a real DSP platform have shown the real feasibility of a remote definition of the physical layer.