Software radio was first defined by J. Mitola in 1995, when he said: "a software radio is a radio whose channel modulation waveforms are defined in software, that is, where forms are generated, as example digital signals, converted from digital to analogue via a wideband DAC, and then possibly are converted from IF to RF. The receiver, similarly, employees a wide band Analogue Digital Converter that captures all of the channels of the software radio mode. The receiver extracts downconverts and demodulates the channel waveform using software of a general purpose processor".

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