Software Defined Electronics: A Revolutionary Change in Design and Teaching Paradigm of RF Radio Communications Systems

Band-pass signals are used everywhere in radio communications. The band-pass property makes the substitution of each RF/microwave/ optical analog signal processing possible with a low-frequency digital one in Software Defined Electronics (SDE). In SDE, the high frequency band-pass signals are transformed into the BaseBand (BB) by a universal HW device and every application is implemented in BB, entirely in software. SDE concept uses (i) the lowest sampling rate attainable theoretically and (ii) the same universal HW device in every application. The huge level of flexibility offered by the SW implementation is essential in many applications from cognitive radio to adaptive reconfigurable systems. This tutorial, written for interested readers who have no solid background in software defined radio, virtual instrumentation and SoC technology, surveys the SDE theory, uses a step-by-step approach for the derivation of BB equivalents and demonstrates the application of SDE concept in scientific research, prototyping and education.