The PASTORAL project, under the European Commission's 5th framework programme for the Information Society. It starts by briefly reviewing the subject background, and explaining the aims of the project.
The relevant background issues are the pressure from users and operators for product evolution, capacity increase and cost reduction, the rise of Third Generation (3G) standardisation, and the attempts by certain collaborative bodies (such as the SDR Forum) to rationalise the problems of re-configurable radio systems, the definitions of sub-system parts and the classification of potential solutions. This deliverable then defines terms used in the rest of the project.
The broad aim of project PASTORAL is the creation of a re-configurable emulator for the physical layer of a terminal, addressing W-CDMA and TD-CDMA, and driven by compatibility with GSM and S-UMTS. This project principally follows the standards of 3GPP, the 3G standards forum with the greatest European content and relevance. The consortium predicts that the available market will be grater in the short-term for 3GPP-compliant UEs. 3GPP is the source of W-CDMA, TD-CDMA and S-UMTS.
Services and applications are explored in relation to 3G standards, those enabled by SDR are suggested, and the generic services of an SDR system are related to the physical terminal. The document describes the procedures necessary for update of SDR systems, where update can be by several routes (such as Over The Air (OTA) or via smartcard), and explains the issues of each method such as security, reliability, billing). Each layer below the SDR-CU is examined, and requirements are presented for the PASTORAL terminal emulator as an example. The current activities of three important industry bodies (MexE, WAP Forum and SDR Forum) are summarised as a more detailed background picture, and it is seen that the environment of the PASTORAL project is clearly not yet stable: this is a healthy situation and an opportunity.
The document ends by drawing conclusions and stating open issues.
The main conclusions are:
- 3GPP is the key standards body in terms of market leverage
- As the standards activity in 3G becomes more mature, there is still a need for re-configurable products as a risk-reducer (of market-risk as well as of technology-risk)
- Time pressure is increased in the light of the investments that operators have made in purchasing 3G licences
- Java and similar derivative languages are attractive as a means for defining functional blocks above the physical layer
- Off-terminal compilation of functional blocks is attractive to keep the terminals 'slim'
- SDR products are uniquely well able to address certain services: updateable processing software, VAS, standards un-gradable on the UE.
Identified open issues are:
- Type approval uncertainty of procedure and scope
- Environmental definition from SDR Forum and other bodies.