May I use GUN Radio without USRP

GNU Radio
1

Hello,

I want to know may I use GNU radio without USRP.

I mean Since USRP is just used for transiver, ADC/DAC, converting RF
signal to
baseband and transmitting baseband signal to GNU Radio for processing,
then may
I produce baseband workload by an Agilent baseband signal generator or
even
Matlab, and then connect GNU Radio with signal generator or Matlab?

The reason I am thinking about this is that from some analysis, I find
the data
rate of the USB2.0 bus limits the bandwidth of the base band signal to 8
MHz,
which is not enough for my project. And My focus is just baseband signal
processing, I want to save money on USRP if I can use existing
equipments in the
lab.

Thanks

Hanks

2

I want to know may I use GNU radio without USRP.

Of course! Gnuradio can be a stand-alone simulation environment. And you
can interface it with anything that you can write code for.

GNU Radio is…

 * An API for creating signal blocks (C++/Python)
 * A runtime environment for signal processing
 * A library of signal processing blocks
 * User scripts and applications
 * Hardware drivers (USRP/USRP2)
 * An application for creating flow graphs (GRC)

I mean Since USRP is just used for transiver, ADC/DAC, converting RF signal to
baseband and transmitting baseband signal to GNU Radio for processing, then may
I produce baseband workload by an Agilent baseband signal generator or even
Matlab, and then connect GNU Radio with signal generator or Matlab?

If you can write code in some language to acquire samples from lab
equipment, then you can write a custom gnuradio block for that
equipment. :slight_smile:

The reason I am thinking about this is that from some analysis, I find the data
rate of the USB2.0 bus limits the bandwidth of the base band signal to 8 MHz,
which is not enough for my project. And My focus is just baseband signal
processing, I want to save money on USRP if I can use existing equipments in the
lab.

Can you test your application at lower data rates? Its usually a good
idea to see that

  1. you can implement the processing in simulation in the gnuradio
    environment
  2. you can run the processing at a low rate on a platform like the USRP
    2a) prove that the CPU can keep up at lower rates
    2b) prove that the algorithm works in the presence of noise and
    frequency offsets

So usrp can be a valuable part of your RF development even if you must
replace it with a higher rate/more expensive device for delivery. Is the
extra time spent integrating agilent equipment worth it if you find out
that your algorithm cant run in real-time at lower usrp rates?

Hope that helps!
-Josh

3

Hi, Josh

Thank you very much, your opinion is really helpful! Yes, GNURadio +
USRP is an
excellent simulation environment. I will consider again how to leverage
it for
my application.

Hanks

发件人： Josh B. [email protected]
收件人： [email protected]
发送日期： 2010/7/11 (周日) 1:08:46 下午
主 题： Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] May I use GUN Radio without USRP

I want to know may I use GNU radio without USRP.

Of course! Gnuradio can be a stand-alone simulation environment. And you
can
interface it with anything that you can write code for.

GNU Radio is…

* An API for creating signal blocks (C++/Python)
* A runtime environment for signal processing
* A library of signal processing blocks
* User scripts and applications
* Hardware drivers (USRP/USRP2)
* An application for creating flow graphs (GRC)

I mean Since USRP is just used for transiver, ADC/DAC, converting RF signal
to
baseband and transmitting baseband signal to GNU Radio for processing, then
may
I produce baseband workload by an Agilent baseband signal generator or even
Matlab, and then connect GNU Radio with signal generator or Matlab?

If you can write code in some language to acquire samples from lab
equipment,
then you can write a custom gnuradio block for that equipment. :slight_smile:

The reason I am thinking about this is that from some analysis, I find the
data
rate of the USB2.0 bus limits the bandwidth of the base band signal to 8 MHz,
which is not enough for my project. And My focus is just baseband signal
processing, I want to save money on USRP if I can use existing equipments in
the
lab.

Can you test your application at lower data rates? Its usually a good
idea to
see that

  1. you can implement the processing in simulation in the gnuradio
    environment
  2. you can run the processing at a low rate on a platform like the USRP
    2a) prove that the CPU can keep up at lower rates
    2b) prove that the algorithm works in the presence of noise and
    frequency
    offsets

So usrp can be a valuable part of your RF development even if you must
replace
it with a higher rate/more expensive device for delivery. Is the extra
time
spent integrating agilent equipment worth it if you find out that your
algorithm
cant run in real-time at lower usrp rates?

Hope that helps!
-Josh