SDR for Metrology and Communications at Submillimeter Wavelengths

Software-Defined Radio (SDR) technology has been driven by advances in RF integrated circuits and is generally available up to 40 GHz. State-of-the-art SDRs used with open software frameworks and interfaced to commercially available up/down-converter hardware provide a means for accessing the submm-THz spectrum. This makes it possible to realize measurement systems and communications channels that exploit the flexibility and processing capabilities of SDR backends. This work demonstrates the first use of SDR to implement a 1 THz FM communications channel using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) SDRs, general RF components, and submillimeter-wave frequency extenders.