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GNU Radio based Real Time Data Transmission and

Reception
Anusha.S1, Lahari.T.N2, G.S.N.Bhavana3 , Pradeep.H.S4
1, 2, 3
B.E Student, Dept. of ECE, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumakuru, Karnataka.
4
Assistant Professor, Dept. Of ECE, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumakuru, Karnataka.
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Abstract Today the world is using the most advanced hobbyist, academic and commercial environments to
technologies everywhere. From electronic devices used support both wireless communications research and real-
for household to artificial intelligence there is a need for world radio systems.
communication. Two devices may involve in a
communication where one has to transmit data while the II. LITERATURE REVIEW
other needs to receive for the operation. The problem
becomes evident if the systems are at a very larger Many techniques were developed in recent years.
distances. So we need to go for wireless communication. The main approaches of the techniques was to transmit
and receive data without much hardware needed using
A software defined radio is a reconfigurable radio GNU radio. In this section, a brief literature review is
whose physical layer functions are mainly or fully defined given.
by software instead of hardware. Because of their
exibility and cost efficiency, SDRs allow the In paper [1], the authors discuss about the emerging
implementation of radio communication systems that are trends of SDR for the applications in modern
interoperable among different standards, protocols, communication systems.
frequency bands, user
requirements and functionalities. In paper [2], the authors focus on SDR from a
discrete-time sampling perspective and discuss the efforts
In this paper, real time data transmission and that are currently being pursued in order to further bridge
reception using different digital modulation the gap between these discrete-time samples. Highlighting
techniques like GMSK, GFSK and DPSK are the advantages and current issues with SDR technology,
implemented using GNU Waveguru and GNU Octave this paper also presents several examples using a recently
tool. released, commercially available SDR platform.

Keywords-software defined radio, GMSK, GFSK, In paper [3], the authors portray the exibility and
reusability of SDR. SDR designers have turned to FPGAs to
DPSK, GNU Octave.
provide a exible and reconfigurable hardware that can
support computationally intensive and complex
I. INTRODUCTION algorithms which can be used in a multitude of voice, data,
and multimedia applications.
SDR(Software Defined Radio) is a radio In paper [4], the authors specify that the Gaussian
communication system where components that have been Frequency Shift Keying modulation and demodulation is
typically implemented in hardware are instead the most widely used modulation scheme for wireless
implemented by means of software on a personal communication as this scheme uses a brand new
computer or an embedded system. SDR are used for its architecture based on reconfigurable CORDIC is involved
simplicity and exibility. With the right software, a single which saves about 640Kbits memory units.
SDR chip could perform the functions such as recording
FM radio and digital television signals, read RFID chips,
track ship locations, or do radio astronomy which makes
III. SYSTEM OVERVIEW
SDR versatile.
GNU Radio is a framework that enables users to
What is GNU radio? GNU Radio is a free and open-
design, simulate, and deploy highly capable real-world
source software development tool kit that provides signal
radio systems. This signal processing blocks can be linked
processing blocks to implement software radios. It can be
together for building and creating the baseband part of the
used with readily-available low-cost external RF hardware
dedicated radio. The most basic structure of the
to create software defined radios, or without hardware in
constructed radio is as shown in Fig.1.
a simulation like environment. It is widely used in

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and very little overshoot in its impulse response. A

Gaussian filter which has an impulse response
characterized by a classical Gaussian distribution (bell
shaped curve) is shown in Fig.2. Notice the absence of
Fig.1: Basic Structure of GNU Radio Flow Graph. overshoot or ringing.

It consists of three parts; signal source, signal

processing and signal sink. Signal source is where the
signal is generated. There is several signal source blocks
available in GNU Radio for instance USRP, sound card
(microphone), signal source (signal generator) etc.
Signal Processing is where signal source is manipulated
before it is loaded into signal sink block. Most of the
baseband processing for signal manipulation is already
available in GNU Radio for instance FIR filters, IIR filters,
FFT, Multipliers etc. Signal sink is where the signal is
translated into the form that user desired. Examples of
signal sink are sound card (speaker), USRP, data in
integer form, graph etc. Fig.2: Gausssian filter impluse response

IV. IMPLEMENTATION BT is related to the filters - 3dB BW and data rate by (1)

WaveGuru is a platform to generate and analyze b. GFSK(Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying):

baseband I/Q (In phase/Quadrature phase) signals which
are compliant to specific technology standards. The
WaveGuru box is used as the USRP. It is used to implement Rather than directly modulating the frequency
GNU Radio. with the digital data symbols, instantaneously changing
the frequency at the beginning of each symbol period,
GNU Octave is mainly used in order to accept the Gaussian frequency shift keying filters the data pulses with
real-time data from the user. It is one of the major free a Gaussian filter to make the transitions smoother. This
alternatives to Matlab. It is primarily intended for filter has the advantage of reducing sideband power,
numerical computations. Octave helps in solving linear reducing interference with neighbouring channels, at the
and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing cost of increasing inter-symbol interference.
other numerical experiments using a language that is
mostly compatible with Matlab. It can be also referred as a A GFSK modulator differs from a simple frequency
clone of Matlab. The octave code helps in taking the real shift keying modulator in that before the baseband
time text input from the user and is later saved to a file. waveform (levels 1 and +1) goes into the FSK modulator, it
is passed through a Gaussian filter to make the transitions
Modulation Techniques: smoother so to limit its spectral width. Gaussian filtering is
a standard way for reducing spectral width, called pulse
a. GMSK (Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying): shaping in this application. The Fig.3 shows the
modulation of a particular signal.
GMSK is derived from MSK. It is unique due to the
relationship between the frequency of a logical zero and
one. The difference between the frequency of a logical zero
and a logical one is always equal to half the data rate. In
other words, the modulation index is 0.5 for MSK. The
fundamental problem with MSK is that the spectrum is not
compact enough to realize data rates approaching the
RF(Radio Frequency) channel Bandwidth(BW). A plot of
the spectrum for MSK reveals side lobes extending well
above the data rate. For wireless data transmission
systems which require more efficient use of the RF
channel BW, it is necessary to reduce the energy of the
MSK upper side lobes. The pre-modulation low pass filter
must have a narrow BW with a sharp cut-off frequency Fig.3: GFSK Modulation.

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c. DPSK (Differential Phase Shift Keying):

In Differential Phase Shift Keying , the phase of the

modulated signal is shifted relative to the previous signal
element. No reference signal is considered. The signal
phase follows the high or low state of the previous Fig.5: Flow graph of text transmitter using GFSK
element. Thus DPSK technique does not need a reference modulator.
oscillator. The Fig.4 represents the model waveform of
DPSK. It is seen from the below figure that, if the data bit is
Low i.e., 0, then the phase of the signal is not reversed, but
continued as it was. If the data is a High i.e., 1, then the
phase of the signal is reversed, as with NRZI, invert on 1 (a
form of differential encoding).

Fig.6: Flow graph of text transmitter using GMSK

modulator.

Fig.4: Waveform of DPSK.

DPSK Modulator: It encodes two distinct signals, i.e., the Fig.7:Flow graph of text transmitter using DPSK
carrier and the modulating signal with 1800 phase modulator.
shift each. The serial data input is given to the XNOR gate
and the output is again fed back to the other input b. Receiver:
through 1- bit delay. The output of the XNOR gate The following flow graphs show the
along with the carrier signal is given to the balance reception of text by using different demodulation
modulator, to produce the DPSK modulated signal. techniques like GFSK, GMSK and DPSK as shown in Fig.8,
Fig.9 and Fig.10 respectively.
DPSK Demodulator: In DPSK demodulator, the phase of
the reversed bit is compared with the phase of the
previous bit. That signal is made to confine to lower
frequencies with the help of low pass filter. Then it is
passed to a shaper circuit, which is a comparator or a
Schmitt trigger circuit, to recover the original binary data
as the output.

Text Transmission
Fig.8: Flow graph of text receiver using GFSK
The modulation techniques like GFSK, GMSK and demodulator.
DPSK are implemented to transmit the text data over a
wireless medium.

a. Transmitter:

The flow graph of the transmitter of a text file is

shown in Fig.5 where GFSK modulation is implemented.
Similarly Fig.6 and Fig.7 shows the flow graph of Fig.9: Flow graph of text receiver using GMSK
transmitter which uses GMSK and DPSK modulator demodulator.
respectively.

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can be either 2,4,8 or 16 and it can be specified according

to requirements. There is an option for using Gray coding.
As gray coding is more advantageous, it is by default used
while the block is selected. Fig.13 is the transmitter flow
graph created using GNU radio for DPSK modulation.

Fig.10: Flow graph of text receiver using DPSK

demodulator.

V. RESULTS

A GFSK modulator is similar to a FSK modulator,

except that before the baseband waveform (levels 1 and
+1) goes into the FSK modulator, it is passed through a Fig.13: DPSK text transmitter flow graph.
Gaussian filter to make the transitions smoother so to limit
its spectral width. If the pulses are changed from 1 to +1 as Fig.14, Fig.15 and Fig.16 are the receiver flow graphs
created using GNU radio for GFSK, GMSK and DPSK
1, .98, .93, +.93, +.98, +1, and this smoother pulse is used
to determine the carrier frequency, thus out-of-band demodulations respectively.
spectrum will be reduced. The input is a byte stream
(unsigned char) and the output is the complex modulated.
Fig.11 is the transmitter flow graph created using GNU
radio for GFSK modulation.

Fig.14: GFSK text receiver flow graph.

Fig.11: GFSK text transmitter flow graph.

GMSK Mod block is responsible for the

modulation of the data before transmission. It provides
the advantage of carrying out the modulation while using
the spectrum efficiently. The roll-off factor also called as
excess bandwidth can be specified. It is usually set to 0.35
to achieve minimum EVM(Error Vector Magnitude). Fig.12
is the transmitter flow graph created using GNU radio for
GMSK modulation.
Fig.15: GMSK text receiver flow graph.

Fig.12: GMSK text transmitter flow graph.

DPSK modulation technique does not have any Fig.16: DPSK text receiver flow graph.
absolute carrier phase reference, instead transmitted
signal itself is used as phase reference. Samples/symbol

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For different modulation techniques and The inferences that is made from the Table.2 are as
different distances, different sizes of text file is follows:
transmitted and the resulting received power levels
are tabulated in the Table.1. For the gain values less than 35, there is no
reception of data irrespective of distance.
Table.1: Power levels for different distances and The minimum gain required for successful
data sizes. reception of data is found to be greater or equal to
35.
As the distance increases with the same gain for
different modulation techniques, the reception
power level decreases.
As the gain value increases, the reception power
level also increases comparatively.
For gain values above 45, reception power level is
saturated.
The effect of data size when gain is varied for
different distances is very minimal.

VI. CONCLUSION
The inferences that is made from the Table.1 are as
follows: In this paper, data is successfully transmitted
over wireless media using GNU radio and USRP. Text is
The receiver antenna placed at the distance of transmitted using different modulation techniques.
3.05m which is in line-of- sight(LOS) of Different sizes of text have been transmitted and received
transmitter antenna has maximum reception by multisystem simultaneously over different distances.
power level. Receiver system kept at near distances receive faster than
The antennas which are in line-of-sight systems at larger distances with different power levels.
comparatively have better reception power.
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