SDR (Software Defined Radio) has revolutionized electronic systems for a variety of applications including communications, data acquisition and signal processing. This handbook shows how DDCs (Digital Downconverters) and DUCs (Digital Upconverters), the fundamental building blocks of SDR, can replace conventional analog receiver designs, offering significant benefits in performance, density and cost.

In order to fully appreciate the benefits of SDR, a conventional analog receiver system will be compared to its digital receiver counterpart, highlighting similarities and differences. The inner workings of the SDR will be explored with an in-depth description of the internal structure and the devices used. Finally, some actual board- and system-level implementations and available off-the-shelf SDR products for embedded systems will be described.