| 5 | | SDR presents a hard real-time computing challenge. The first generation of SDR mobile terminals will be very limited in computing resources (processing powers, interprocessor bandwidths, memory, power, etc.) and will, most probably, not be capable of supporting more than one RAT implementation at a time. The flexibility of these terminals is then a function of the capability of their reconfiguration managers, which need to track the states of the computing resources. On the contrary, the computing resources of SDR network elements are less limited. Nevertheless, an optimized (minimized) usage of computing resources could be highly desirable to reduce their operational costs, among others. |
| | 5 | == Computing Resource Management: Motivation == |
| | 6 | SDR presents a hard real-time computing challenge. Taking into account the evolution of wireless systems it is clearly stated that whereas spectrum efficiency increases lineally its requirements in computing resources increases exponentially. Therefore, the flexibility, based on the reconfiguration capacity of terminals and network equipment, is based on capability of their reconfiguration managers, which need to track the states of the computing resources. |
| 7 | | An SDR processing chain, SDR application or waveform, is the part of an SDR transceiver that is implemented in software. It can be understood as a set of concurrent processes that continuously process and propagate real-time data. Such a processing chain is not specifically tailored but rather executable on any general-purpose platform with sufficient computing capacity. We therefore consider general-purpose computing methods practical for SDR systems because of the similarities between future’s SDR applications and platforms and today’s general-purpose computing applications and platforms. We particularly believe that the introduction of appropriate mapping and scheduling techniques, which are indispensable for the dynamic switch between RATs, will leverage the design of SDR platforms and applications. Mapping describes the process of assigning software modules to hardware resources, whereas scheduling determines their execution times. We consider them to be two complementary computing resource management methods. |
| 8 | | Wireless or SDR systems, however, reveal specific aspects, essentially regarding flexibility and efficiency, that have not been jointly considered so far in heterogeneous computing: |
| | 8 | An SDR processing chain, SDR application or waveform, is the part of an SDR transceiver that is implemented in software. It can be understood as a set of concurrent processes that continuously process and propagate real-time data. Such a processing chain is not specifically tailored but rather executable on any general-purpose platform with sufficient computing capacity. Therefore, a mapping process, carrying out the task of assigning software modules to hardware resources, becomes the basis for the Computing Resource Management framework. Wireless and SDR systems, however, reveal specific aspects, essentially regarding flexibility and efficiency, that should be jointly considered: |
