SOFTWARE DEFINED COGNITIVE RADIO USING LABVIEW
SOFTWARE DEFINED COGNITIVE RADIO
USING LABVIEW
RIJUL CHOUDHRY, ROHINI SURESH and MANISHA CHAUDHARY
Abstract-Wireless communication has
become the most popular type of
communication.In fixed spectrum
assignments, there are many frequencies
that are not properly used,so cognitive
radio helps use this unused frequency bands
(“White Spaces”).This is a unique approach
to improve utilization of radio spectrum. In
this project we have employed PSK digital
de/modulation technique using the software
LabVIEW. The project will employ one
laptop with LABVIEW installed and
simulates the radio communication process
where the outputs at various stages for
random data(PN SEQUENCE).The outputs
will be measured in terms of eye diagram,
constellation diagram, SNR and BER.
I.INTRODUCTION
Wireless communication created a
revolution in our lives. New wireless devices
are capable of offering higher data rates and
innovative services. Licensed and unlicensed
spectrum is available for different wireless
services. But with the exponential increase in
wireless devices and their usage, the
unlicensed spectrum is becoming scarce.
Licensed spectrum is used for specific service
while the unlicensed spectrum (Industrial,
Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio bands) are
freely available for wireless services and
research purposes. Currently static spectrum
allocation policy is in practice due to which
bandwidth in unlicensed bands is becoming
scarce and for licensed bands it is either
underutilized or unoccupied. Licensed
spectrum specifically TV spectrum and
cellular spectrum are underutilized.According
Federal communications commission
(FCC)2002,the licensed bands are
underutilized and the ISM bands are over
utilized.This report also stated that licensed
bands average utilization is 15-85%. The
unutilized portion of licensed spectrum is
1
known as white space. White space could be
defined by time, frequency and maximum
transmission power at a specific location.This
spectrum inefficient utilization occurs due to
static spectrum allocation policy adopted by
the governments worldwide.Solution to this
inefficient spectrum utilization is dynamic
spectrum access and allocation. The above
mentioned statistics from FCC report show
ineffectual utilization of spectrum which
encouraged researchers to develop new
spectrum sharing methodologies.
The idea of cognitive radio provides a
solution by which efficient spectrum
utilization is possible by applying the
optimistic spectrum sharing techniques. The
concept of cognitive radio was first purposed
by Joe. Mittola in 1999.The cognitive radio is
a spectrum agile system which has the ability
to sense the communication environment
dynamically and it can intelligently adapt the
communication parameters (carrier frequency,
bandwidth, power, coding schemes,
modulation scheme etc.).
Cognitive user should be capable of
sensing the environment for the estimation of
available resources and application
requirements and could adopt their
performance parameters according to user
request and available
resources.Secondary(cognitive) user can
utilize the licensed spectrum (available white
spaces) without affecting the priority
utilization of the spectrum by primary user. In
this way, it maximizes the efficient licensed
spectrum utilization. The hardware challenges
of cognitive radio are catered by techniques
like Software define radio (SDR) and
Application specific integrated chips (ASIC).
Considering the transmission and
reception parameters, cognitive radios can be
divided in to two categories.
 Full cognitive radio- The type of
cognitive radio in which almost every
SOFTWARE DEFINED COGNITIVE RADIO USING LABVIEW
parameter of wireless node or network
is considered.
 Spectrum sensing cognitive radio.-In
case of spectrum sensing cognitive
radio only spectrum of radio
frequency is considered.
We first give a brief review about
cognitive radio(literature survey)in Section II.
In Section III an overview of LabVIEW is
provided .Section IV we give and explain the
block diagram and its sub-blocks .Simulation
and results are provided and explained in
Section V. The future scope and conclusion is
dealt in section VI.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
Cognitive radio (CR), in its original
meaning, is a wireless communication
paradigm utilizing all available resources more
efficiently with the ability to self-organize,
self-plan, and self-regulate.The year 2009
marked the 10th anniversary of Mitola and
Maguire Jr. introducing the concept of
cognitive radio. This prompted an outpouring
of research work related to CR, including the
publication of more than 30 special issue
scientific journals and more than 60 dedicated
conferences and workshops. Although the
theoretical research is blooming, with many
interesting results presented, hardware and
system development for CR is progressing at a
slower pace. We provide synopses of the
commonly used platforms and test beds,
examine what has been achieved in the last
decade of experimentation and trials relating
to CR, and draw several perhaps surprising
conclusions.
A)CR IMPLEMENTATION:
PLATFORMS AND SYSTEMS
We briefly review the most popular
existing hardware and software radio systems,
dividing these platforms into two headings.
First, we deal with reconfigurable
software/hardware systems, where the
majority of the radio functionality, like
modulation/coding/medium access control
(MAC) and other layer processing, is
performed in software. The burden in terms of
processing and functionality on the radio
frequency (RF) front-end is intended to be
minimal in these cases. Second, we take a look
at composite systems comprising a
combination of purely software and hardware-
3
based signal processing elements (e.g., field-
programmable gate arrays [FPGAs]).
RECONFIGURABLE
SOFTWARE/HARDWARE PLATFORMS
We begin by focusing on 3 research-
oriented systems:OSSIE, GNU Radio, and Iris.
OSSIE-The Open Source SCA
Implementation:Embedded (OSSIE) project is
an open source software package for SDR
development. OSSIE was developed at
Virginia Tech, and has become a major Linux-
based open source SDR software kit,
sponsored by the U.S. National Science
Foundation (NSF) and the Joint TacticalRadio
System (JTRS), among others. OSSIE
implements an open source version of the
Software Communication Architecture (SCA)
development framework supporting SDR
development initiated by the U.S. Department
of Defence, and it supports multiple hardware
platforms.OSSIE is mostly used at Virginia
Tech. al Science Foundation (NSF) and the
Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), among
others. OSSIE implements an open source
version of the Software Communication
Architecture (SCA) development framework
supporting SDR development initiated by the
U.S. Department of Defence, and it supports
multiple hardware platforms.OSSIE is mostly
used at Virginia Tech.
GNU Radio — Arguably, the software
defined radio (SDR) system with the most
widespread usage is the open source GNU
Radio project (http://www.gnuradio.org). It
supports hardware independent signal
processing functionalities. Beginning in 2001
as a spin-off of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology’s (MIT’s) P spectra code
originating from the Spectrum Ware project,
the GNU Radio software was completely
rewritten in 2004. Signal processing blocks are
written in C and C++, while the signal flow
graphs and visualization tools are mainly
constructed using Python. GNU Radio is
currently one of the official GNU projects
having strong support from the international
development community. A wide range of
SDR building blocks are available, including
ones commonly used to build simple CR-like
applications (e.g., energy detection). The GNU
Radio project prompted the development of
the Universal Software Radio Peripheral
(USRP) hardware by Ettus Research LLC.
Iris— Iris is a dynamically reconfigurable
software radio framework developed by the
SOFTWARE DEFINED COGNITIVE RADIO USING LABVIEW
University of Dublin, Trinity College. This is a
general-purpose processor-based rapid
prototyping and deployment system. The basic
building block of Iris is a radio component
written in C++, which implements one or more
stages of a transceiver chain. Extensible
Markup Language (XML) is used to specify
the signal chain construction and
characteristics. These characteristics can be
dynamically reconfigured to meet
communications criteria. Iris works in
conjunction with virtually any RF hardware
front-end and on a wide variety of operating
systems. A wide range of components have
been designed for Iris that is focused on CR-
like systems. Multiple sensing components
ranging from simple energy detection to more
sophisticated filter bank and feature-based
detection components are available. A suite of
components for dynamically shaping and
sculpting waveforms to make best use of
available white space, or components that
enable frequency rendezvous between two
systems on frequencies that are not known a
priori, have also been developed.For
development purposes Iris can also interface
with Matlab. Iris is predominantly used by the
development group at the University of
Dublin, Trinity College.
B.)OTHER SYSTEMS
In addition to the software-centric and
composite systems described in this article, it
is important to note that several standalone
components have also been developed. The
need for spectrum sensing, an important aspect
of CR functionality, has been a driver for this
development work. Examples include
Rockwell Collins, IMEC, and sensing devices
from the Institute for Infocomm Research
(I2R), Singapore, which is addressed later in
this article. Finally, there are some well-
known DSA focused SDR platforms that are
not used directly in CR experimentation at the
moment. The most prominent ones include the
Japanese National Institute of Information and
Communications Technology SDR Platform,
Flex Radio and Powered used mainly for
amateur radio work (http://www.flex-
radio.com), and SoftRock kits
(http://www.dspradio.org).
C) OVERVIEW OF IMPORTANT CR
EXPERIMENTS
Conference Demonstrations-In the latter
part of the last decade, some independent
3
conference venues featured demonstration
sessions. The information relating to these
events forms our starting point. We focus
mostly on the demonstrations presented at
IEEE DySPAN and SDR Forum (now
Wireless Innovation Forum) conferences,
which are the most recognized and largest
directly related events in the community.
A demonstration track was first
established in the IEEE DySPAN conference
series in 2007. Since that year there have been
a total of 22 demonstrations. The SDR Forum
annual technical symposium, run by the SDR
Forum since 1996, organized their first
demonstration track in 2007. The
demonstrations presented that year comprised
only SDR platforms and development kits for
engineers. In 2008 real demonstrations were
presented. In total, 12 demo platforms were
shown, among them three that were related to
DSA. During the 2009 SDR Forum conference
event, 10 demonstrations were presented,
among them three related to DSA systems.
Important demos presented outside of these
two venues are also included in this survey.
The Association for Computing Machinery
(ACM) MobiCom ’09 included only one CR-
like demo from RWTH, Aachen University,
Germany. In 2008 ACM MobiCom featured
one CR demo from Microsoft Research,
China. ACM SIGCOMM ’09 included one
demonstration from the University of Dublin,
Trinity College. The survey data for this
article were collected as follows. From the
publicly available data on each demonstration,
we have extracted information related to the
waveforms used, frequency ranges, form of
spectrum sensing, transmit or receive
capabilities, control channel usage, type of
application used, sponsoring body, and
number of developers. We focused only on
actual demonstrations, ignoring demos that
were either presenting development
frameworks only, or based on SDR and
reconfigurable platforms that were not related
to CR or DSA systems. In total, we have
identified 41 relevant demonstrations. For
detailed information on each demonstration
platform the reader is referred to the respective
conference proceedings.
III. LabVIEW
A)HISTORY OF LabVIEW
"For more than 20 years, NI LabVIEW
graphical development has revolutionised the
development of scalable test, measurement,
SOFTWARE DEFINED COGNITIVE RADIO USING LABVIEW 3

and control applications. Regardless of transmitter and a receiver that exchanges

experience, engineers and scientists can information in half-duplex mode (transmission
rapidly and cost-effectively interface with of data in just one direction at a time).
measurement and control hardware, analyse
data, shared results, and distribute systems."
NI LabVIEW is a programming
language which allows simple interfacing with
measurement hardware.With its unique
graphical programming environment, libraries
containing knowledge of thousands of devices
and useful toolkits, acquiring data using
LabVIEW is very easy.
Originally released for the Apple Fig.1-Block Diagram Of PSK Transceiver
Macintosh in 1986, the graphical language at A)PSK TRANSMITTER
the heart of LabVIEW is called "G". The idea The transmitter consists of the RF Filter
at that time was to revolutionise the and the PSK modulator, the diagram for both
measurement and automation industry, and the is given below with its explanation.We have
technology brought about the virtual provided the practical sub-block diagram
instrument - helping engineers and scientists to along with the representation of it in
customise measurement systems to suit their LabVIEW.. The input message sequence is the
needs. It was not until 1992 that LabVIEW random PN sequence. The message bits are
was available for platforms other than the filtered by system filter and sent to the PSK
Macintosh and since then it has undergone modulator. The output of modulator is a
many revisions. complex waveform.
B)LabVIEW
LabVIEW (short for Laboratory Virtual
Instrument Engineering Workbench) is a
system-design platform and development Fig 2-RF FILTER
environment for a visual programming
language from National Instruments.
LabVIEW is a graphical programming
language that uses icons instead of lines of text
to create applications. In contrast to text-based
programming languages, where instructions Fig 3-PSK MODULATOR
determine program execution, LabVIEW uses
dataflow programming, where the flow of data
determines execution. In LabVIEW, you build
a user interface with a set of tools and objects.
The user interface is known as the front panel.
You then add code using graphical
representations of functions to control the
front panel objects. The block diagram
contains this code. In some ways, the block
diagram resembles a flowchart.

IV.BLOCK AND SUB-BLOCK

DIAGRAM
A transceiver is a device comprising both
a transmitter and a receiver which are
combined and share common circuitry (that
both transmits and receives analog or digital
signals).
In radio communications, a transceiver is Fig 4.TRANSMITTER LabVIEW CODE
a two-way radio that combines both a radio
SOFTWARE DEFINED COGNITIVE RADIO USING LABVIEW
B) PSK CHANNEL
A channel is basically a medium
through which data transmitted at the source
(transmitter end) reaches its destination
(receiver end).It connects both the transmitter
and the receiver part of many communication
transceivers.
FIG 3.CHANNE
Fig 5-CHANNEL
C) PSK RECEIVER
The receiver consists of the PSK demodulator
and the output is in terms of EYE
DIAGRAM,CONSTELLATION DIAGRAM
and BER vs Eb/No.
Fig 6.PSK DEMODULATOR
Fig 7 RECEIVER
D)OUTPUT RESULTS
Basically we have dealt with M-PSK, but
for this paper we have provide the output
results for 4-PSK.The diagrams below depict
the output in terms of an eye diagram,
constellation diagram and BER vs Eb/No.
3
i)EYE DIAGRAM
Fig 8-EYE DIAGRAM
The eye diagram shows how the
waveforms used to send multiple bits of data
can potentially lead to errors in interpretation.
The eye pattern can be used to see
timing jitter in one dimension of modulation.
An eye pattern, also known as an eye diagram,
is an oscilloscope display in which a data
signal from a receiver is repetitively sampled
and applied to the vertical input, while the data
rate is used to trigger the horizontal sweep. It
is so called because, for several types of
coding, the pattern looks like a series of eyes
between a pair of rails. It is an experimental
tool for the evaluation of the combined effects
of channel noise and intersymbol interference
on the performance of a baseband pulse-
transmission system. It is the synchronized
superposition of all possible realizations of the
signal of interest viewed within a particular
signalling interval.
ii)CONSTELLATION DIAGRAM
Fig 9-CONSTELLATION DIAGRAM
A convenient way to represent PSK
schemes is on a constellation diagram. These
shows the points in the complex plane where,
in this context, the real and imaginary axis are
SOFTWARE DEFINED COGNITIVE RADIO USING LABVIEW
termed the in-phase and Quadrature axes
respectively due to their 90° separation. Such a
representation on perpendicular axes lends
itself to straightforward implementation. The
amplitude of each point along the in-phase
axis is used to modulate a cosine (or sine)
wave and the amplitude along the Quadrature
axis to modulate a sine (or cosine) wave.In
PSK, the constellation points chosen are
usually positioned with
uniform angular spacing around a circle. This
gives maximum phase-separation between
adjacent points and thus the best immunity to
corruption. They are positioned on a circle so
that they can all be transmitted with the same
energy. In this way, the module of the
complex numbers they represent will be the
same and thus so will the amplitudes needed
for the cosine and sine waves... Since the data
to be conveyed are usually binary, the PSK
scheme is usually designed with the number of
constellation points being a power of 2.It
displays the signal as a two-
dimensional diagramming the complex
plane at symbol sampling instants
iii)BER vs Eb/No
Fig 10-BER vs Eb/No
In digital transmission, the number of bit
errors is the number of received bits of a data
stream over a communication channel that
have been altered due
to noise, interference, distortion or bit
synchronization errors. The bit error rate or bit
error ratio (BER) is the number of bit errors
divided by the total number of transferred bits
during a studied time interval. BER is a unit
less performance measure, often expressed as
a percentage.
The bit error probability pe is the expectation
value of the BER. The BER can be considered
as an approximate estimate of the bit error
probability. This estimate is accurate for a
3
long time interval and a high number of bit
errors.
V.CONCLUSION and FUTURE SCOPE
In this report-PSK modem system has
been built in graphical programming software
called LabVIEW. Since the modem system
was already built in QAM and FSK, PSK was
chosen as modulation scheme. By the use of
M-PSK the constellation points are more
distinct and data errors got reduced. The
unique properties of M-PSK constellation
permit acquisition and tracking of signals at
noise levels 0–12 dB which is a perfect match
for the expected Eb/N0 values.
In digital communication bits get altered
due to noise present in the channel. In order to
recover the original transmitted bits at the
receiver, error detection and correction
algorithms were implemented in LabVIEW for
CR and finally their performances have been
analyzed and compared in terms of BER. The
simulation results conclude that minimum
BER achieved using convolution coding is in
the range of (10−6) compared to that of
Hamming (10−4) at a particular value of SNR.
Hence even at larger values of SNR, the BER
achieved is extremely small. These results
prove that the signal transmitted has been
recovered with very low probability of error at
the destination. CR applications are on the
horizon due the enabling technologies of AI
and SDR. The co-integration of these two
fields of study will create new capabilities for
the commercial and military marketplaces