Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication technology that implements conventional hardware components using software. The motivation behind SDR-based systems is reprogrammability and ease of maintenance. This technology increases the lifespan of radio communication infrastructure by allowing new protocols to be supported through software updates. Another advantage of SDRs is reduced development time and cost.
One key performance parameter of SDRs is their high throughput, which is the rate of data that can flow through the system. The high throughput is enabled by the wide-band connections that SDRs can support, as well as the FPGA used to interface with the host system.