Embedded systems with gnuradio

GNU Radio
1

Hi,

I was just letting my mind wander and I want your thoughts on the
possibility of the following ideas involving Gnuradio on a handheld
computer such as the IPaq running at 400Mhz.

  1. Building an USRP for such an embedded device.

  2. Enabling GPS on such a system to help with navigation. The navigation
    helper software might be a different project. I think that there are
    free maps available.

  3. Using the amatuer band (shortwave/UHF?) as a telephone line extension
    (I know that the free spectrum is available, but this has limited range.
    The free spectrum may be useful in the home, but not for mobile
    applications). By this, I mean transmitting your skype or landline
    telephone conversations by radio, using the embedded device as a
    receiver (ie. avoid costly mobile phone charges). Several questions
    arise from this:
    a) I have not yet studied for an amatuer licence. For those that do, is
    it legal to use the spectrum in such a way.
    b) Is the free spectra suitable for transmitting digital audio such as
    speex.

These applications could be extremely useful.

Thanks for any comments on these ideas. Note, I am from a CS background.
I have ordered the Lyons book for an intro to DSP.

2

On Wednesday 31 May 2006 05:10, Daniel Piccoli wrote:

I was just letting my mind wander and I want your thoughts on the
possibility of the following ideas involving Gnuradio on a handheld
computer such as the IPaq running at 400Mhz.

Does it have a high-speed USB 2.0 host interface? I’d love to use the
USRP
with my Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000, which has the USB On The Go dual
device/host
interface plug, but only runs full speed, not high speed. And, as I
mention
below, the OpemEmbedded buildsystem used to build OpenZaurus (and
Familiar,
for the iPaq users) builds the Debian usrp packages for it. I’m not
running
OZ yet on my Akita (the nickname for the C1000), but when I do I plan on
at
least trying the usrp packages out. It would seem to me a firmware
change
could enable full speed operation on the USRP; it would of course limit
your
bandwidth to 150kHz max, unless you want to do chopped sampling like the
SDR-14 does at the higher bandwidth settings.

  1. Building an USRP for such an embedded device.

The OpenEmbedded project builds usrp and friends, but not the GNUradio
python
stuff.

Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC 28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu

3
  1. Building an USRP for such an embedded device.

The OpenEmbedded project builds usrp and friends, but not the GNUradio python
stuff.

I am the maintainer for the usrp bb file in OE. It includes a patch that
makes it work for USB1.1 interfaces. This patch may be a problem if you
have access to machine with a USB2.0 controller.

I should have time to update the version to a recent usrp software
version in a few weeks.

Philip

4

On 5/31/06, Philip B. [email protected] wrote:

I am the maintainer for the usrp bb file in OE. It includes a patch that
makes it work for USB1.1 interfaces. This patch may be a problem if you
have access to machine with a USB2.0 controller.

I should have time to update the version to a recent usrp software
version in a few weeks.

Hi,

Why is gnuradio-core-* stuff not included in OE? Are there any
dependencies which are blocking it?

–
Ramakrishnan - VU3RDD

5

Why is gnuradio-core-* stuff not included in OE? Are there any
dependencies which are blocking it?

Well, it needs python, which should be there. It also need FFTW3 with
the single-precision library. My recent monotone pull of
org.openembedded.oz354x doesn’t have either fftw3 or wxPython (and its
dependencies). I think it needs python-numeric; been awhile since I’ve
traversed the dependency chain for GNUradio since FC5 has everything
needed built.

Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC 28772
828-862-5554
www.pari.edu

6

Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan wrote:

Why is gnuradio-core-* stuff not included in OE? Are there any
dependencies which are blocking it?

Mostly because I am the OSSIE SCA guy, not a real gnuradio guy :slight_smile:

I don’t know enough about building the rest of gnu radio enough to know
where problems, if any, lie. I usually on the #oe channel on freenode if
any trying to build gnu radio in OE needs some help.

Philip

PS: Is there a gnu radio irc channel?