A comparison study between software-defined radio and cognitive radio / Nik Khairul Bariyyah Abdul Hamid

Software defined radios (SDR) introduce many new challenges, one of which is the proper development, maintenance, and distribution of the core software. As with any software venture, SDR requires industry, government, and the independent development community to work together to produce an environment that fosters software development and innovation. SDR differs from other areas of software development by the long history of radio regulatory requirements that must be satisfied. Cognitive radio systems offer the opportunity to improve spectrum utilization by detecting unoccupied spectrum bands and adapting the transmission to those bands while avoiding the interference to primary users. Since these technologies do not reach yet in Malaysia, this research was developed to study and compare the usage and the capabilities for both. This research can be beneficial for the network administrator or anyone who in IT field to gain their knowledge on the latest technology. This research focused on the architectures, applications, block diagrams, and advantages and disadvantages for both of technologies. Actually, any SDR is in cognitive radio systems. From my researches It finally found that each technology has their own strengths and weaknesses. But, Cognitive Radio is better and the enhancement of SDR.