In the fast evolving wireless communication system, Software Defined Radio (SDR) has emerged as a feasible solution to overcome the compatibility issue of various communication standards. There is a pressing need to have stable, low-cost, open platforms to support the configurable and standard (restriction) free architecture. The goal of SDR perfectly matches the nature of Linux: zero licensing cost, robust architecture, flexible networking capabilities and open source. Due to the obvious synergy of open source and open standard, Bluetooth, the popular unified wireless short-range communication standard, is chosen to partner with Linux to approach the SDR design from bottom up. This project consists of four primary steps, namely the feasibility study, the implementation of the embedded Linux and the GUI system, incorporation of applications to test the functionality and the development of the Bluetooth protocol stack. This project investigates the feasibility of using a version of embedded Linux (ARM Linux) on an Intel 206MHz Strong ARM based system, the Assabet evaluation board. The feasibility study required the setting up of a windowing system on the embedded device by cross-compiling Microwindows running under ARM Linux kernel, the configuration of FLNX to operate with Microwindows to allow the execution of numerous FLTK based programs, the configuration of the file system on the Ramdisk residing in the Assabet evaluation board and the modification of the touch screen driver to ensure proper functionality of the input process. A web browser and support for Ethernet were also included. Through the comparison with various open sourced Linux Bluetooth protocol stacks Openbt, BlueDrekar and Affix, the BlueZ is selected due to its robustness, friendliness and functionality. To handle the time critical task like TDMA etc. The real time feature of embedded Linux is also explored.

David is working for Agilent Technology as a R&D software engineer while pursuing a Master of Engineering in the Centre for High Performance Embedded Systems (CHiPES) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has worked on an embedded Linux PDA project in Motorola.