Implementation of smart antenna API and transceiver API in software communication architecture for a wireless innovation forum standard

Abstract

This study presents an implementation of the standard smart antenna (SA) application programming interface (API) and Transceiver API developed by the wireless innovation forum's (WINNF) smart antenna working group (SAWG). The API is implemented using the open-source SCA implementation-embedded (OSSIE) developed at Virginia Tech. Our implementation verified that the SA API can be utilized in software communication architecture (SCA)-based software defined radio (SDR) systems. We also verified that the Transceiver API can be realized with a real radio frequency (RF) transceiver module such as universal software radio peripheral2 (USRP2). The SA API enables various functions of multi-antenna systems such as beamforming and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) of spatial multiplexing. These are core technologies prevalent in 4G mobile communication systems. In order to support multi-antenna structures, the Transceiver API has first been extended for multichannel use. The paper details how the API is extended using OSSIE and the current status of the API as a standard within the Wireless Innovation Forum.