Software defined radio in the electrical and computer engineering curriculum

The development of Software Defined Radio systems and their extension to Cognitive Radio Systems and Smart Radio Systems have introduced a plethora of topics and examples that can be included in the curriculum. The design of these software defined radio systems has less in common with traditional radio design and more in common with the design of Embedded Systems and Software Engineering. This purpose of this paper is to overview software defined radio from the simplest form to its most complicated form and give examples on how software defined radio concepts can be used as examples and exercises in a variety of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering courses and labs.