Application of software radio to the third generation mobile telecommunications

The third generation (3G) mobile telecommunication systems (IMT-2000) are under consideration. The systems will be put into commercial use in the year 2000 and later. At the beginning of their operation, the second-generation systems seem to be coexisting. Therefore, the transceiver equipment of the base station (BS) and mobile station (MS) should support the operation of these systems from the viewpoint of system compatibility. In this case, so-called multi-mode/multi-band operation is required for users' convenience. Furthermore, realization of small sized and low power consumption handy terminals is necessary. The software radio approach is one of the most promising techniques for this purpose. This paper describes the application of software radio technique to realize the multi-mode transceiver for 3G system.