A flexible VHF-band aeronautical datalink receiver based on software defined radio

The primary objective of the project was to acquaint ourselves with software defined radio (SDR) techniques to put into action some of the concepts covered during digital communications courses. SDR offers an easy way to design and implement flexible radiofrequency (RF) transceiver architectures using mainly software developments [1]. Thus, it allows to get promptly familiar with classic issues to overcome when designing receivers (RF electronics impairments, asynchronously-sampled signals...) without getting restricted by material constraints traditionally brought by full-hardware implementations (i.e., cost of hardware components to be soldered together, need of various development and testing instruments...).