April 11, 2016
Software radio technology has been steadily evolving during the last 25 years from a laboratory curiosity to widespread deployment in virtually every commercial, consumer, government, industrial, and military platform across the entire radio-frequency spectrum. A constant stream of innovations in data-converter technology, DSP devices, system interconnects, processors, software, design tools, and packaging techniques continuously boosts performance levels and reduces the size, weight, cost, and power of software radio systems. This rapid explosion of applications is characterized by ad-hoc, proprietary interfaces between each element of the system. An evolving standard, nicknamed VRT, offers a consistent protocol for these interconnections to improve interoperability, maintainability, and upgradability.