The WINLAB Network Centric Cognitive Radio Hardware Platform - WiNC2R

This paper presents the design goals and architecture of WiNC2R - the WINLAB Network Centric Cognitive radio hardware platform. The platform has been designed for flexible processing at both the radio physical layer and MAC/network layers with sustained bit-rates of ~10 Mbps and higher. The hardware prototype supports multi band operation with fast spectrum scanning, the ability to dynamically switch between a number of OFDM and DSSS modems and multiple MAC protocols. The radio modems, MAC, and network-layer protocols are implemented in a flexible manner using general-purpose processing engines and a set of dynamically configurable hardware accelerators. An FPGA based platform implementation currently in progress is described in terms of key hardware components including the software-defined modem, the flexible MAC engine and network-level processor. Preliminary prototyping results are reported, and a roadmap for further evolution of the WiNC2R board is provided.