This paper presents the theoretical analysis of subband adaptive array combining cyclic prefix transmission scheme (SBAA-CP) in multipath fading environment. The exact expressions for optimal weights, array outputs and the output signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) are derived. The analysis shows that use of the cyclic prefix data transmission scheme can significantly improve the performance of subband adaptive array (SBAA). An example of implementing SBAA-CP as a software antenna is also presented.

Software radio or software defined radio (SDR) is a quite attractive field of research in terms of theoretical cross-over research themes between radio engineering and computer science in academia as well as new multi-standard or all-purpose radio system products in industry. In order to promote research and development in a field of SDR this paper briefly introduces some prospective aspect and research themes on SDR. There are many approaches to research SDR such as architectures, devises, algorithms, description languages and API (application program interface) for achieving reconfigurability and downloadability in an SDR system. One of the approaches is to focus on an antenna for SDR. Although a baseband circuit is generally programable and reconfigurable, an antenna and a RF circuit are used to be less flexible and hardware-dependent and then result in a bottleneck for implementing an SDR system. However, an adaptive array antenna or a smart antenna named a software antenna is adaptively controllable and reconfigurable because it can be programable to form a desired beam pattern if an appropriate set of antenna weights is provided with software. It must be a vital tool for carrying out an SDR system. A software antenna can be considered as an adaptive filter in space and time domains for radio communications, so that the communication theory can be generalized from a conventional time domain into both space and time domains. This paper also introduces structures and theories of a software antenna which I have been studying before this millennium.

A software antenna, which will be a key device realizing flexible and highly reliable wireless communications systems, is inherently matched with software defined radios (SDR). In this paper, first, key technologies on the software antenna are introduced. The technologies contain i) how to recognize the radio environment, ii) how to determine the optimum adaptive signal processing algorithm, and iii) how to reconfigure the digital beamforming circuit. Then, an image of a software antenna with reconfigurable eigenvector-beamspace configuration is presented. Finally, by assuming various propagation conditions, performance of the software antenna in terms of algorithm diversity is demonstrated.

Multimedia mobile communication systems are expected to be realized in the near future. In such systems, multipath fading can cause severe degradations of the quality of the communications due to its wide bandwidth, especially in urban areas. Adaptive array antennas can be attractive solution for overcoming the multipath fading. Suppression can be achieved with the adaptive array by cophasing and combining multipath signals in the space and time domain. On the other hand, the concept of software antenna has been proposed. The software antenna recognizes radiowave environments and appropriately reconfigures itself for the signal processing required by the recognized environment. Efficient implementations can be expected if these functions are realized by the software. In this paper, we propose two types of the adaptive array systems which is reconfigurable depending on the radiowave environment as a realization of the concept of the software antenna. They recognize the environment by using the eigenvalue decomposition of space domain correlation matrices and reconfigure their structures of the signal processing. The principle and performance are examined by theoretical means and through computer simulations.

Based on a recent remarkable development of digital beamforming (DBF) antenna technologies, we propose a new concept of kaleidoscopic antenna, we call it "software antenna," which is a more general one extending DBF schemes. The software antenna instantly reconfigures itself adapting its software and hardware to changes in the radio-environment. To realize the software antenna, the development of high-speed reconfigurable FPGAs is indispensable. As an intelligent antenna, we believe the software antenna could play a key role in the days of software radio having a function of mobile computing.