ACORN PROJECT (Agile and Cognitive Radio development framework) (2014-2016)

The proposed ACORN (Agile and cognitive software radio development framework) research project focuses on developing a generic framework, which can be used as an agile tool for researching cognitive and software radio systems. The core idea is that any component or element within said generic framework can be flexibly exchanged from HW to SW or vice versa. The basis and central idea for the ACORN was the commercial need in the industry to be able to create products with longer life cycle. At first, it is good to make distinction between consumer electronics targeted for the end users and the professional electronics used and maintained by operators. Traditionally the equipment in the network infrastructure was intended to last several years, if not, tens of years. However, the fast development of technologies, new revisions of different standards and fragmentation of vast amount of different technologies are forcing operators to replace their hardware in rather regular basis. Cognitive radio systems, which are radio systems employing technologies that allows the system to obtain knowledge of environment and dynamically and autonomously adjust its operational parameters, are examples how software defined radio can be used as a tool for optimizing the whole end-to-end chain. Such end-to-end chain spans from end user devices receiving the content to the network equipment providing the source of content. Cognitive technologies may include geo-location databases, spectrum sensing, beacons etc. Hence the cognitive radio is chosen as one of the core subject of investigation in the ACORN project. The ACORN will provide a framework that helps project consortium partners to identify and develop a flexible architecture, which minimizes the use of replaceable HW components and on the contrary maximises the use of flexible and easy-to-update SW components. As an end result there will be energy efficient and green products with a long life cycle. The ACORN (Agile and cognitive software radio development framework) research project will be a joint contribution by European partners consisting of enterprises, SMEs and universities. The main goal of ACORN is to explore possibilities of SDR implementations as different parts of embedded systems. One part of the project is the development of reference platforms, which can be used as a tool for researching and developing different software components in SDR. Cognitive radio will be used as one of the practical implementations of the ACORN.   Computing platforms for embedded systems: One of the main focus areas within the ACORN project is the generic platform which is developed to enable investigation of different SDR components as part of radio system. The project will enable research of various different application domains, but the development will be common, including common platform components and interfaces between the platform elements. The different application domain clusters will cooperate to form components on higher abstraction layers, which will enable reusability between cross-domain applications. Reference designs and architectures: Cost-effective integration of the software and hardware components, resulting to green long-life products is one of the main goals in ACORN. It will achieve this by exploiting existing components and by the development of novel hardware and software components. As a result, ACORN will provide a reference design with flexibility and high level of configurability which supports the development of common platform. This reduces system design and unit cost, extends the lifecycle of the products and gives a competitive advantage to the European industries. Seamless connectivity and interoperability: ACORN targets creating a common platform which enables flexible linking of software and hardware components in all layers. Dynamic configuration of micro-kernels, flexibility of different configurations and intelligence of the components is essential part of the common platform and components which will be developed by ACORN. Low energy consumption and cost-efficiency will be emphasized. Design methods and tools: The flexibility is the basic principle which is used in the design methods and tools of ACORN. Hence, incremental development, verification, validation and certification shall be ensured by the project. Flexibility and modular development platform enables, that when needed, even sub-sets and separate elements of the developed platform can be taken aside and processed further as separate elements. Also know-how achieved from the design methods and tools can be capitalized as on its own if so desired.