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Gnuradio Guide

GNU Radio is an open source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software-defined radios and signal-processing systems. It allows implementing custom digital communications systems and signal processing algorithms by connecting blocks. A software-defined radio receiver for ATSC digital television signals has been implemented using a commodity PC with GNU Radio, demonstrating the flexibility of software-defined radio. GNU Radio aims to expand the "free software ethic" into hardware domains by making radio systems programmable with free software.

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312 views19 pages

Gnuradio Guide

GNU Radio is an open source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software-defined radios and signal-processing systems. It allows implementing custom digital communications systems and signal processing algorithms by connecting blocks. A software-defined radio receiver for ATSC digital television signals has been implemented using a commodity PC with GNU Radio, demonstrating the flexibility of software-defined radio. GNU Radio aims to expand the "free software ethic" into hardware domains by making radio systems programmable with free software.

Uploaded by

Nishant1234_2014
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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GNU Radio

A Free Software Defined Radio

Eric Blossom

[email protected]

Blossom Research
798 Lighthouse Ave., Suite 109
Monterey, CA 93940 USA

+1 831 917 3428

Thought for the day


The milk of disruptive
innovation doesnt flow from
cash-cows.
David S. Isenberg

GNU Radio

Overview
Software defined radio
Free (open source) software
GNU Radio
Software ATSC receiver

GNU Radio

What is software defined radio?


Get the software close to the antenna
Software defines the waveforms
Replace analog signal processing with
digital signal processing

GNU Radio

Why SDR?
Flexibility
Quicker time to market
Multiple personalities (chameleon)
New things are possible:

Multiple channels at the same time


Better spectrum utilization
Cognitive radios
GNU Radio

Disadvantages
Higher power consumption than
dedicated ASIC approach
More MIPS required
Higher cost (today)

GNU Radio

Current SDR users

Military
Consolidating a stack of radios
Bridging between radio networks

Cellular base stations


Avoid fork lift upgrades
Multiple standards on same system
New features to market quicker
GNU Radio

Emerging SDR uses

Personal communication devices


Cellular / Paging / Wireless LAN(s)

PC based generic transceiver


Radio / TV
Emerging unlicensed RF band apps

GNU Radio

What is free software?

Free as in liberty
User has access to the source
User is free to modify and is encouraged
to contribute the modifications back to the
community

A culture of innovation
Various licenses: GNU General Public
License (GPL), Mozilla, Artistic License.

GNU Radio

Who uses free software?


World wide community of users
Publicly traded companies support or
distribute free software: IBM, Red Hat,
Mandrake
Linux
Apache web server
Not a fringe activity

GNU Radio

What is GNU Radio?


Its a free software defined radio
A platform for experimenting with
digital communications
A platform for signal processing on
commodity hardware

GNU Radio

Vision
Transmit and receive any signal
Create a practical environment for
experimentation & product delivery
Expand the free software ethic into
what were previously hardware
intensive arenas

GNU Radio

What H/W is required?


Commodity PC
RF front end (e.g., TV tuner module)
Multi-channel applications / wide B/W:

High speed A/D (20 25 Msamples/sec)

Single channel / narrow bandwidth:


SoundBlaster, AC97 codec, etc.

GNU Radio

SDR ATSC receiver is practical!

Commodity PC:
Dual processor Athlon 1800+ MP
512 MB RAM / 120 GB disk
$1300
Can do:
6 * 10^9 integer ops / sec
4 * 10^9 FIR filter taps / sec

GNU Radio

ATSC computational
requirements
1080i TSP decode takes about of a
single CPU
Nave equalizer: about 2.5 * 10^9 taps/s

Smart s/w version: about 0.6 * 10^9 taps/s

Viterbi decoder: 10^6 decisions / sec.


Highly amenable to SIMD implementation
Short constraint length
GNU Radio

Moores Law is on our side


Even if were off by a little bit, within 3
years well have 4 times the
performance for the same money.
General purpose hardware gets faster
by itself (Intel, AMD, etc take care of it).
ASICs dont get faster by themselves.

Even a die shrink is expensive & time


consuming
GNU Radio

Open source hardware too!

General purpose SDR PCI peripheral:


Tuner module
25 Msample/sec A/D converter
Spartan II FPGA (100k gates)
Misc analog, SRAM, etc
PWB
Assembly & Test

Total cost to manufacture:


GNU Radio

$20
$12
$18
$10
$10
$10

$80

GNU Radio resources

Home page (links to source code)


http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio

Mailing list
[email protected]

Archive
http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio

Open source hardware


http://www.opencores.org/projects/pci
PCI bridges, ethernet, memory controllers, etc.
GNU Radio

Questions?

GNU Radio

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