Assessing the over-the-air software download for reconfigurable terminal

The need for software radio is motivated by an anticipated demand for multi-mode terminals. One of the major areas of interest in software radio technology is the ability to download software. Downloading software modules, from end-user applications to communication physical layer processing algorithms, will offer to the user a new set of capabilities. Thus, software radio technology will give the mobile the ability of handling a wide range of wireless communication protocols by downloading appropriate software, switching from GSM to IS-95 systems for instance. A typical method of downloading software to a mobile terminal is the use of a wireless link. This method is known as over-the-air (OTA) reconfiguration. This paper presents an overview of the OTA software download issues, followed by an analysis of the requirements of a potential bootstrap channel.