Software-defined radios (SDRs) are now recognized as a key building block for future wireless communications. We have spent the past year enhancing existing open software to create a software-defined data radio. This radio extends the notion of software-defined behavior to higher layers in the protocol stack: most importantly through the media access layer. Our particular approach to the problem has been guided by the desire to allow fine-grained cognitive control of the radio. We describe our system, Adaptive Dynamic Radio Open-source Intelligent Team (ADROIT).

The ADROIT project is building an open-source software-defined data radio, intended to be controlled by cognitive applications. The goal is to create a system that enables teams of radios, where each radio both has its own cognitive controls and the ability to collaborate with other radios, to create cognitive radio teams. The desire to create cognitive radio teams, and the goal of having an open-source system, requires a rich and carefully architected system that provides great flexibility (enabling cognitive applications to change the radio's behavior) and also has a clear structure (both so that others may add or enhance the software, and also so that the system can be clearly modeled for cognitive applications). What follows is a summary of the ADROIT system and the key architectural features intended to enable cognitive radio teams.