WIND-FLEX: developing a novel testbed for exploring flexible radio concepts in an indoor environment

We describe the essential features of a novel testbed, code-named WIND-FLEX and developed under the auspices of the EU IST research program, whose primary goal has been to define and explore concepts related to radio flexibility, with application to an OFDM-based short-range indoor radio transceiver design. The emphasis has been on the profitable use of software and DSP tools for the purpose of demonstrating adaptivity and reconfigurability features, primarily for the lower layers (i.e., PHY and DLC/MAC layers). The topics covered briefly herein include the meaning of the terms in the present context, their instantiation in the design, their contribution to an optimized low-transmit-power scheme, the novel elements required in order to achieve it, the contribution to a guaranteed QoS philosophy, and the relationship of the testbed to broader software-defined-radio concepts.