  The future 5G wireless infrastructure will support any-to-any connectivity
between densely deployed smart objects that form the emerging paradigm known as
the Internet of Everything (IoE). Compared to traditional wireless networks
that enable communication between devices using a single technology, 5G
networks will need to support seamless connectivity between heterogeneous
wireless objects and IoE networks. To tackle the complexity and versatility of
future IoE networks, 5G will need to guarantee optimal usage of both spectrum
and energy resources and further support technology-agnostic connectivity
between objects. One way to realize this is to combine intelligent network
control with adaptive software defined air interfaces. In this paper, a
flexible and compact platform is proposed for on-the-fly composition of
low-power adaptive air interfaces, based on hardware/software co-processing.
Compared to traditional Software Defined Radio (SDR) systems that perform
computationally-intensive signal processing algorithms in software, consume
significantly power and have a large form factor, the proposed platform uses
modern hybrid FPGA technology combined with novel ideas such as RF
Network-on-Chip (RFNoC) and partial reconfiguration. The resulting system
enables composition of reconfigurable air interfaces based on hardware/software
co-processing on a single chip, allowing high processing throughput, at a
smaller form factor and reduced power consumption.
