Software Defined Radio (SDR)
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This document discusses software defined radio (SDR) and various low-cost SDR devices that can be used for experimenting with radio signals, including RTL-SDR USB dongles, HackRF, NooElec SDR sticks, and FUNcube Dongles. It provides information on software like GNU Radio, Gqrx, rtl-sdr library, ViewRF, and OpenBTS for processing radio signals on devices like the BeagleBone Black.
Software Defined Radio (SDR)
- 1. Fun with bits of ether: Software Defined Radio (SDR) NERP Meetup Mar-31-2014 (Not Exclusively Raspberry Pi) Presenter: Drew Fustini @pdp7 / drew@pdp7.com Video Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1tazUyp-oM Pumping Station: One Chicago Hackerspace
- 2. Software Defined Radio (SDR) ● Application of Digital Signal Processing to radio waveforms ● Similar to software-based digital audio techniques ● Sound card digitizes audio waveforms ● Software radio peripheral digitizes radio waveforms. ● Like very fast sound card with speaker & microphone replaced by an antenna. ● Implement virtually any wireless technology: Bluetooth, ZigBee, cellular technologies, FM, etc *text on this slide from: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mossmann/hackrf-an-open-source-sdr-platform
- 3. ● http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki ● GNU Radio is a free & open-source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software radios. ● It can be used with readily-available low-cost external RF hardware to create software-defined radios, or without hardware in a simulation-like environment. ● It is widely used in hobbyist, academic and commercial environments to support both wireless communications research and real-world radio systems.
- 4. FUNcube Concept “The original FUNcube Dongle concept: receiving information from space as part of a global educational collaboration project”
- 5. FUNcube Dongle Pro+ http://www.funcubedongle.com/ ● 125 GBP / $208 USD ● Guaranteed coverage: – 150kHz to 1.9GHz – Gap between 240MHz and 420MHz ● “FUNcube Dongles are the ground receiver for the FUNcube Satellite project” ● “It’s also all-mode: this means that it’s not just limited to narrow band FM reception.”
- 7. HackRF: open source SDR platform ● operates from 30 MHz to 6 GHz, a wider range than any SDR peripheral ● used to transmit or receive radio signals. It operates in half-duplex mode: it can transmit or receive ● Max bandwidth is 20 MHz, about 10 times the bandwidth of TV tuner dongles popular for SDR ● used for high speed digital radio applications such as LTE or 802.11g ● Post-kickstarter, expected retail ~$300: http://greatscottgadgets.com/hackrf/
- 8. HackRF Hardware ● LPC43xx ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller ● CoolRunner-II CPLD (may switch to MAX V)
- 9. Cheap USB adapters as SDR receiver ● Find cheap <$30 USB DVB-T adapters from many sources online ● DVB-T is used to broadcast TV in Europe ● Libraries have been written to use USB DVB-T with certain a software defined radio
- 10. Adafruit SDR USB stick If you've ever been curious about software defined radio (SDR), this USB stick is the easiest way possible to have fun with a powerful, configurable receiver. ● $22: Software Defined Radio Receiver USB Stick - RTL2832 w/R820T ● RTL2832U and R820T tuner with an MCX RF connector ● Tune into signals from 24MHz to 1850MHz. ● Use a computer (with Windows, Mac, or Linux) to tune into: – FM Radio – AM signals (but not AM radio) – CW (morse code!) – unencrypted radio signals (such as those used by many police and fire departments) – POCSAG pagers ● basic 'DVB-T' antenna
- 11. NooElec SDR stick on Amazon ● $20: NooElec Brand RTL-SDR, FM+DAB, DVB-T USB Stick Set with RTL2832U & R820T. Great SDR for SDR#, HDSDR, and Other Popular SDR Software Packages ● http://www.amazon.com/NooElec-RTL-SDR-RTL2
- 12. rtl-sdr library ● http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr ● DVB-T dongles based on the Realtek RTL2832U can be used as a cheap SDR ● chip allows transferring the raw I/Q samples to the host, which is officially used for DAB/DAB+/FM demodulation. ● History and Discovery of RTLSDR
- 13. rtl-sdr supported devices ● http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr ● The RTL2832U outputs 8-bit I/Q-samples, and the highest theoretically possible sample-rate is 3.2 MS/s, however, the highest sample-rate without lost samples that has been tested so far is 2.56 MS/s. The frequency range is highly dependent of the used tuner, dongles that use the Elonics E4000 offer the widest possible range (see table below). ● Elonics E4000 52 - 2200 MHz with a gap from 1100 MHz to 1250 MHz (varies) ● Rafael Micro R820T24 - 1766 MHz ● Rafael Micro R828D 24 - 1766 MHz ● Fitipower FC0013 22 - 1100 MHz (FC0013B/C, FC0013G has a separate L-band input, which is unconnected on most sticks) ● Fitipower FC0012 22 - 948.6 MHz ● FCI FC2580 146 - 308 MHz and 438 - 924 MHz (gap in between)
- 14. Build rtl-sdr on BeagleBone Black ● Using Angstrom on eMMC ● opkg update ● opkg install libusb-1.0-dev ● git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git ● Follow commands in my GitHub Gist: – https://gist.github.com/pdp7/5503462
- 15. Test rtl-sdr From GitHub Gist: https://gist.github.com/pdp7/8683297 root@beaglebone:~# rtl_eeprom Found 1 device(s): 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
- 16. Play FM radio station 96.3MHz (using Adafruit USB $5 audio adapter) root@beaglebone:~# nice -n -10 rtl_fm -f 96.3e6 -M wbfm -r 48000 - | aplay -r 48k -f S16_LE Found 1 device(s): 0: Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000001 Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U OEM Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner Tuner gain set to automatic. Tuned to 96571000 Hz. Oversampling input by: 6x. Oversampling output by: 1x. Buffer size: 8.03ms Exact sample rate is: 1020000.026345 Hz Sampling at 1020000 S/s. Output at 170000 Hz. Playing raw data 'stdin' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono
- 17. Alternative if no USB audio adapter ● http://www.meetup.com/Southeast-Michigan-Beagle ● Listening to audio via my Mac using BeagleBone connected to tuner. 'sox' installed on my Mac for the 'play' app. 'rtl_fm' : ● ssh root@192.168.7.2 "nice -n -10 rtl_fm -W -f 96.3M" | play -r 32k -t raw -e signed-integer -b 16 -c 1 -V1 --buffer 100000 -
- 18. rtlizer: RF Spectrum Analyzer ● http://www.oz9aec.net/index.php/beaglebone/480-rtliz
- 19. ViewRF: RF Spectrum Analyzer ● http://hackaday.com/2013/09/09/an-rtl-sdr-spectrum
- 21. Gqrx by Alexandru Csete ● http://gqrx.dk/ ● Open source software defined radio receiver powered by the GNU Radio SDR framework and the Qt graphical toolkit ● Packaged for Ubuntu Linux & Mac OS X ● Supported Hardware: http://gqrx.dk/supported-hardware ● Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/oz9aec/videos
- 22. Run your own GSM base station! ● http://openbts.org/ ● OpenBTS is a Unix application that uses a software radio to present a GSM air interface to standard 2G GSM handset and uses a SIP softswitch or PBX to connect calls ● Range Networks SDR1 Open Source Software-Defined Radio: http://openbts.org/sdr1.html
- 23. The Amp Hour interviews ● HackRF creator: http://www.theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-161-gifted-grimg ● “Matt started and still runs Ettus Research, now a 12 person Software Defined Radio (SDR) company located in the Bay Area” http://www.theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-101-quality-quad ● Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) products are computer-hosted software radios: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Software_Radio_Peri ●