Architecture of a Spectrum Monitoring System Using Software-Defined Radio

Abstract

Spectrum monitoring is an essential task to be performed for a country administration to control and monitor its use. Its main components are the monitoring equipment (i.e. spectrum analyzers, antennas and GPS) which are arranged in strategic locations throughout a territory to get information about the characteristics of radio services. There is a special interest to complement this system with simpler and more portable equipment, to get much spectrum information, mainly in areas that cannot be reached through the main monitoring network. An alternative is to use Software Defined Radio (SDR), a technique to build devices that can replace some hardware by software routines, thus reducing costs and size. In industry there are different equipment and programming tools to build flexible devices, easily upgradeable and reconfigurable for specific tasks. This paper describes the main components of a monitoring system developed with SDR, and the tools used to implement it.