Introduction of a multi-port wave-correlator as promising receiver for software defined radio

The paper discusses the usefulness and limitations of the modern receiver architectures for software defined radio (SDR) applications. A linear homodyne receiver architecture based on the multi-port technique is introduced and its suitability for SDR applications is discussed in detail. The limitations of the existing six-port based receiver systems are highlighted. The conventional receiver architectures are examined and it is shown that they are not entirely satisfying the requirements of SDR. The multi-port receiver successively avoids the drawbacks of the conventional technical solutions and can be used as a perspective device for modern digital communication.