The Software Antenna: A New Concept of Kaleidoscopic Antenna in Multimedia Radio and Mobile Computing Era

Yoshio KARASAWA
Takashi SEKIGUCHI
Takashi INOUE

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E80-B    No.8    pp.1214-1217
Publication Date: 1997/08/25
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section LETTER (Special Issue on Mobile Computing)
Category: 
Keyword: 
mobile radio,  software antenna,  reconfigurable FPGA,  algorithm diversity,  

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Summary: 
Based on a recent remarkable development of digital beamforming (DBF) antenna technologies, we propose a new concept of kaleidoscopic antenna, we call it "software antenna," which is a more general one extending DBF schemes. The software antenna instantly reconfigures itself adapting its software and hardware to changes in the radio-environment. To realize the software antenna, the development of high-speed reconfigurable FPGAs is indispensable. As an intelligent antenna, we believe the software antenna could play a key role in the days of software radio having a function of mobile computing.