The Future of GNU Radio: Heterogeneous Computing, Distributed Processing, and Scheduler-as-a-Plugin

Abstract

The next major iteration of GNU Radio - version 4.0 has been under development for the past 2 years. GNU Radio 4.0 represents more than an incremental improvement; it uses an entirely new architecture with an emphasis on heterogeneous computing, scheduler-as-a-plugin, and distributed signal processing to take advantage of cloud computing. In this paper we go over the weaknesses and limitations of GNU Radio version 3, and how they are being addressed as part of 4.0. Using preliminary results showing various forms of processing gain, we demonstrate why re-architecting GNU Radio is necessary to provide a software defined radio framework suitable for the complex workflows of future applications. We outline the vision that is driving the restructuring of the already powerful GNU Radio framework and summarize what is left before 4.0 is released.