Seminar by Fred Harris, IEEE Fellow, Visiting Professor, San Diego State University.

SDR is the amalgamation of DSP based technology, Integrated Circuit capabilities, RF Hardware Technology, Market Opportunities, Societal Needs, Promotion Hype, Heavy Expenditures, wishful thinking, and unleashed creativity! Wireless communications, following the early trail of Wired Communications, has come a long way since Nicola Tesla, Earnst Alexanderson, Guglielmo Marconi, Valdemar Poulsen, David Sarnoff, Lee DeForest, Edwin Armstrong, and the other early captains of industry. In much the same way that wireless telegraphy was an extension of wired telegraphy, early radio developed as an extension of the telephone; we want to transmit and receive sounds and eventually moving pictures!

The new era started with Claude Shannon, Harry Nyquist, Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce who taught us “that the world is an analog stage in which digits play a bit part”, a very important bit part! The revolution that Shannon spawned has lead to the current state of affairs; inexpensive communications anywhere, anytime, anything, anyone! It happened so rapidly we have to ask our children to configure our phones! SDR is likely the next series of steps in this same evolution.

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