Platform Based Design of Terminals and Infrastructure Components for Cognitive Wireless Networks

Cooperative wireless networks will facilitate a beneficial evolution of multimedia communications, setting out from the today´s multitude of communication standards and radio interfaces both in the licensed and the unlicensed domain. The deployment of cognitive wireless solutions, which will form the communication platforms, will be a key asset because we expect to see an increasingly flexible, ad-hoc utilization of the available spectrum in the unlicensed domain and a co-existence of communication standards in the licensed bands. In this communication, the authors will illustrate a platform based approach towards cognitive wireless communications. Three software defined radio concepts designed by the authors will be presented, namely the HAWK (Highly Adaptable Wireless Kit), the FALCON (Flexible Access Logic for Communication Networks), and the MUSTANG (MUlti-STAndard single chip transceiver for the Next Generation), finally, giving an outlook on their wireless optical communication device, termed ARGOS. These concepts form the basis of the authors´ cognitive wireless termed PROMETHEUS.