SBIR-STTR Award

Software-defined radios (SDRs) permit use of the same hardware to address a spectrum of applications, rapidly shifting the operation of a single hardware system to meet the multiple demands of the user. In its short history, most of the SDR development has been for military and personal communicator applications. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project from Ameranth Technology Systems seeks to attain an industrial/commercial goal, I.e., to develop a family of low-cost interoperating radios for data input and display in the warehousing and material management environments, with embedments of voice communications and system commands, data transceiving, and single-frame video interchange. The radio architecture is based on a demonstrated and successful system using precedent silicon technology. For this proposed work, an advanced, highly integrated radio chip set will be "opened up" to allow complete access to the software "hooks" for software definition of the radio functions by the operator. In Phase I, Ameranth Technology will design the system based on its prior subsystem elements, using software control of low-cost wireless-telephone silicon to perform all the functions of a half-dozen large and generally very expensive single-purpose radios. In the next phase of the research, a system family of radios will be built and tested in a demonstration prototype. The project proffers broadly redefinable radio subsystems that can be mixed and matched to each other and to the external (cellular phone) world to enable a very low-cost, readily proliferous system for real-time accounting and control of operations now controlled by rivers of paper. Specific market niches for the equipment are hospitality, retail, and defense.

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project follows a successful Phase I technology demonstration and will establish the feasibility of a multimode (IEEE 802.11 and Bluetooth) data communications system using a single-chip radio modem and a single-chip baseband processor, both software configurable. The program objectives are, (1) Quantify key system design parameters, (2) Determine the best suited radio and baseband processor architectures, (3) Identify critical system features and interfaces needed to assure system applicability to existing and anticipated commercial applications.systems, (4) Specify a radio and baseband system to be simulated with the Ameranth 21st Century Restaurant(TM) commercial design software, (5) Design a prototype radio, (6) Construct a prototype transceiver module using selected Ameranth terminals, (7)Demonstrate the operation of the system using the Ameranth terminals/system application(s), and (8) Prepare for initial production and commercialization. The technology is a Bluetooth chipset implementation using silicon-on-insulator wafer structure and BiCMOS transistor structure. The market for wireless computing devices is enormous. Ameranth products have applicationacross a wide range of industries, including the hospitality, retail, transportation, law enforcement, health care, finance, telecommunications and defense industries. Ameranth has more than 2,300 customers that have expressed interest in these products.