Truck Connectivity Platform Using Software Defined Radios

Abstract: Hardware updates and feature updates of electronic equipment can take a long time for market implementations. Technology tends to become obsolete by the time the update is launched into the market. In the automotive industry, the service entertainment module (SEM) containing the core logic for Amplitude Modulation (AM), Frequency Modulation (FM), and Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) radio tuners lack the facility for software-based updates. One of the major challenges for the infotainment/entertainment modules in the automotive industry is to have a single radio module that can support software updates and multistandard radio technologies from different countries. Software Defined Radios (SDR) can be used to deal with this problem as SDR is a platform to prototype or develop new communication protocols as well as add new features or capabilities to the existing protocols without requiring major capital expenditures. SDR is a cost-effective radio platform because it can update radio equipment on the fly and provide additional functionality without requiring hardware modifications. By means of software instead of hardware updates, development loops could be shortened and manufacturing costs are reduced. In this thesis, a thorough comparison of a hardware-based tuner and a software-based tuner is performed in the presence of AM/FM/DAB modulated signals based on the metrics specified in ETSI EN 303 345-1 including sensitivity, adjacent channel suppression, far-off channel suppression, cross-modulation, third-order intermodulation, etc. After performance evaluation and comparison, it can be proven that the SDR based system can perform as well as the hardware tuner used in the SEM unit.