Software Defined Radio

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. Soft Ware Defined Radio

3. Ettus Researchhttp://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. 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 Soft Ware Defined Radio

5. 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) Soft Ware Defined Radio

6. 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 • 400-500 MHz transceiver • 750-1050 MHz transceiver (including cell and ISM bands) • 1150-1450 MHz transceiver • 1.5-2.1 GHz transceiver (including PCS bands) • 2.3-2.9 GHz transceiver (including ISM band) Soft Ware Defined Radio

7. 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. Soft Ware Defined Radio

8. GNU Radiohttp://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++. Soft Ware Defined Radio

9. 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 AlteraQuartus II Web Edition • USRP hosts dual Analog Devices AD9862 mixed signal analog front end devices connected to an Altera Cyclone EP1C12 FPGA. 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 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. Soft Ware Defined Radio