Comparative Analysis of Software Defined Radio Platforms for Spectrum Sensing Applications

In the context of trying to obtain a solution for using the limited radio spectrum resources in an efficient way, the design of equipment having flexible RF front ends arose as a necessity. The software defined radio (SDR) approach offered such characteristics and several producers developed such platforms in recent years. In the current paper, several SDR platforms are compared from a RF front end receive performance point of view. Several measurements were performed in different frequency bands using the SDR platforms, using a spectrum analyzer as a reference. The results are analyzed and discussed having in mind the use of such a platform for performing spectrum sensing applications, which is a key necessity for the design of dynamic spectrum access (DSA) capable equipment.