Software-defined radio (SDR) may be turning a corner, thanks to a professor at Virginia Tech University in Blackburn, Va. For it is there that Professor Charles Bostian is spearheading a team developing a SDR based upon GNU, an open-source software, which may lead to an open-source software platform. This, in turn, may bring about a an SDR-based handset with an expected price tag of $500—far below estimates of $38,000 for military-grade SDRs. Currently, Bostian is funded by grants from the National Institute of Justice and the National Science Foundation.
The timing could not be better, for this effort dovetails quite nicely with a study by Venture Development Corporation (VDC) in the private land mobile radio domain with regard to the radios first responders expect to receive in the future. That study revealed, according to Bob Johnson, senior analyst, telecom/datacom, at VDC, that of the nearly 300 first responders queried, 46% expect to be equipped with SDRs by 2010. However, VDC did not identify any suppliers in the study with strong interest in SDRs, nor could they identify anyone who was making SDRs for this market.

So how to account for this discrepancy? For some time Cluster 1, which until 2005 had been spearheading the military's JTRS program, appears to become stuck. What's more, early evaluations have reported that JTRS is plagued by the inability to adapt the military software communications architecture to decrease both the cost and the form factor of an SDR handset.

Coming to the rescue is The Department of Homeland Security who is haunted by the lessons learned with regard to the communications failures that attended 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. With them the mantra is interoperability and they see SDR as a major contributor to the solution. This explains why SDR has acquired a well-deserved priority. For as Johnson points out: "The first responders in this country are being viewed by the government as the first line soldiers without guns, who are on a war footing—but with no defined battlefield."

So it's no surprise that there are efforts under way to make sure that first responders will be prepared, if the need arises.

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