Application of Software Defined Radio for Noise Reduction Using Empirical Mode Decomposition

Abstract

Software Defined Radios (SDR) are aimed at reducing the efforts required specifically in Wireless Communication. Many hardware devices are currently being used for communicating via radio waves. The function of SDR is to replace possibly all the hardware stuff by software which results in great flexibility and portability. This concept has opened new windows to the world of digital communication. Today there exists many flavors of SDR. This paper focuses on the open source GNU Radio and its capabilities. The GNU Radio Project serves as a reference for experiments in the area of signal processing and communications. This paper deals with utilizing the capabilities of software radios to improve the quality of the incoming signal. Our objective was to improve the received signal by reducing noise and thus enhancing the overall communication quality. We propose the use of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) method embedded into GNU Radio. The idea presented here is to include the EMD functionality in GNU Radio toolkit so as to ensure reduction of error for better communication. We have integrated the capabilities of Empirical Mode Decomposition into GNU Radio and found improvements in the simulated environment.