1. Software Defined Radio
William Mullins, Srinu Munigala, Samir Rawashdeh, Daniel Steinberg
EE-587 Dr. Lumpp 17 APR 2008

2. Software Defined Radio
Radios that currently use hardware (i.e. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors. etc.) are replaced with software
Significant amounts of signal processing are handed over to the general purpose processor, rather than done using special-purpose hardware.
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

3. Ettus Research http://www.ettus.com/
Developed the Universal Software Radio Peripheral, or USRP
Allows you to create a software radio using any computer with a USB 2 port
The entire design of the USRP is open source
The USRP works with GNU Radio, a free-software (open source) framework for the creation of software defined radios.
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

4. Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP)
Cost $700
2 TX and 2 RX slots
Input
Number of input channels: 4 (or 2 I-Q pairs)
Sample rate: 64 Ms/s
Resolution: 12 bits
SFDR: 85 dB
Output
Number of output channels: 4 (or 2 I-Q pairs)
Sample rate: 128 Ms/s
Resolution: 14 bits
SFDR: 83 dB
Auxiliary I/O
High-speed digital I/O: 64 bits
Analog input: 8 channels
Analog output: 8 channels
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

5. Soft Ware Defined Radio
USRP Features
Four 64 MS/s 12-bit analog to digital Converters
Four 128 MS/s 14-bit digital to analog Converters
Four digital downconverters with programmable decimation rates
Two digital upconverters with programmable interpolation rates
High-speed USB 2.0 interface (480 Mb/s)
Capable of processing signals up to 16 MHz wide
Modular architecture supports wide variety of RF daughterboards
Auxiliary analog and digital I/O support complex radio controls such as RSSI and AGC
Fully coherent multi-channel systems (MIMO capable)
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

6. Soft Ware Defined Radio
USRP Daughter Boards
DC to 30 MHz receiver
DC to 30 MHz transmitter
1 MHz to 250 MHz receiver
1 MHz to 250 MHz transmitter
50 to 860 MHz receiver
800 MHz to 2.4 GHz receiver
MHz transceiver
MHz transceiver (including cell and ISM bands)
MHz transceiver
GHz transceiver (including PCS bands)
GHz transceiver (including ISM band)
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

7. Soft Ware Defined Radio
USRP Bad News
As of April 7th, 2008
The USRP motherboard is out of stock. More will be available on April 21st.
The DBSRX is out of stock. More will be available on April 28th.
Everything else is in stock and ready to ship at this time.
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

8. GNU Radio http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/
GNU Radio provides a library of signal processing blocks and the glue to tie it all together.
The signal processing blocks are implemented in C++.
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

9. Soft Ware Defined Radio
GNU and the FPGA
For the initial setup there will be no need to worry about writing verilog. GNU distributions come with compiled verilog
To compile the verilog source code for the FPGA firmware for the USRP you need Altera Quartus II Web Edition
USRP hosts dual Analog Devices AD9862 mixed signal analog front end devices connected to an Altera Cyclone EP1C12 FPGA.
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

10. GNU support Operating Systems
Linux
Fedora
Ubuntu
Debian
Mandriva
SuSE
Gentoo
Mac OS X
NetBSD (likely also appropriate for DragonflyBSD and helpful for OpenBSD and FreeBSD)
Windows
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio

11. GNU Current Applications
A TiVo equivalent for radio, capable of recording multiple stations simultaneously.
Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) waveforms.
A passive radar system that takes advantage of broadcast TV for its signal source. For those of you with old TVs hooked to antennas, think about the flutter you see when airplanes fly over.
Radio astronomy.
TETRA transceiver.
Digital Radio Mundial (DRM).
Software GPS.
Distributed sensor networks.
Distributed measurement of spectrum utilization.
Amateur radio transceivers.
Ad hoc mesh networks.
RFID detector/reader.
Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) processing.
17 Apr 2008
Soft Ware Defined Radio