DSP systems for next-generation mobile wireless infrastructure

Cellular mobile systems are evolving to offer enhanced packet data services at increased data rates. Emerging standards like GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and CDMA2000 promise high-speed Internet access and multimedia applications on an anywhere, anytime basis. Whereas most research efforts focus on portable handsets, this paper discusses the implications of these standards on the design of next-generation mobile infrastructure systems. Basestations (BTS) will require flexible, low cost integrated solutions that are capable of supporting several-standards. Software radio architectures will see increased deployment in these systems and this paper describes DSP-only and hybrid DSP+IP Core approaches. We argue that the implementation efficiency of the Viterbi algorithm and the SOVA and LOG-MAP variants will become a differentiating factor for next-generation wireless communications-particularly in those employing programmable DSP devices