Software defined radio based receivers using RTL — SDR: A review

Software defined Radio is one of the most important and latest technique for modern wireless communication. SDR is a radio which can be tuned to any frequency band which the hardware supports, implement different modulation and demodulation schemes and different signal types and standard(s) in the same device by using reconfigurable hard-are and using powerful software. This paper provides a detailed analysis of SDR based radio receivers that can be implemented by using SDR systems. The main types of devices that can be implemented using SDR are only Radio Receiver, only Radio Transmitter and a Transceiver which provide function for both transmitter and receiver. Implementation of SDR devices using MATLAB, Simulink, GNU Radio and Single Board Computer is also discussed in this paper. The availability of low cost SDR hardware with good functional capability has reduced the overall cost of SDR system. This paper also provides a comparison between different types of radio systems developed using SDR and their performance analysis is also provided.