Hi mr. Josh,
thank you very much for answering to my questions. It’s good to know
that
somebody started to think to those people who are using Windows OS. I
want you
to know that I’m used to other types of development like
microcontrollers,
FPGA’s, different communications RS232, RS485, SPI, I2C, and many others
different from this GNU Radio stuff, but even if I read many things
about GNU
Radio it’s hard to understand how it’s working, especially when I had so
many
problems while trying toinstall it on Windows and to tell you the truth
I
havemy USRP for about a year and no success to try it on Win OS.
After heaving so many problems with the installation part I decided to
use
something else, and I thought I would use some DLL found on Tools4SDR,
but it
turned out it doesn’t has any support for new daughterboards like WBX,
than it
came up the idea to make my own program to control USRP, but maybe
that’s not
such a good idea soItend to accept that I will have to use UHD, GNU
Radio (in
a certain way)and a compiler to make my program and bound all these
together.
What I downloaded here Josh Knows | Error! Page probably not found,
looks
better (UHD is what I need - something that I can use to control USRP),
I only
have to understand how to use it with my application, I wouldn’t like to
use it
with python.
OK, so there’s the USRP, it needs the rbf file containing the logic for
the
FPGA, how it has to work. Usually I program my FPGA boards with a JTAG
programmer, but here is a nice USB transceiver, that is the first
problem, to
understand how it works, and how is GNU Radio driving it. As I
understand the
8051 microcontroller is already programmed (This is why I get the
correct FFFE
VID and 0002 PID when heaving the USRP connected to the PC and Win
driver
installed). There’s many source code related to the USB transceiver in
many
different files and as I saw it’s quite difficult to use all that. When
is the
rbf file written to the FPGA (I suppose that only once at the
beginning), but
where, I checked an example code for USRP, the “usrp_spectrum_sense.py”
file and
I can’t get the picture where is told what and when to write to the
FPGA? Anyway
as I checked out that python code, regarding the fact that I’m used
tothe well
structured pascal code, this is a mess, I already dislike python, but if
I will
have to use it, I think I don’t have any other choice.
OK, so let’s suppose that the rbf file is written to the FPGA through
that
USB transceiver. I run a python code and I get some results like a nice
plot,
representing some values coming as a stream from the FPGA. I checked the
“usrp_spectrum_sense.py” example python code for USRP, WOW, it’s reallya
mess
(C source code it’s not as well structured code as Pascal, but Python is
very
ugly compared to C, maybe because I’m not used to it therefore I’m sure
that you
don’t agree with me ), I don’t want to plot anything anywhere (maybe
only time
to time when trying out new things and I want to see what I do receive),
only to
get some data that might arrive at a certain frequency, after that I
will make
the whole demodulation, and others (in pure Pascal, or maybe using some
components from Delphi, FreePascal). I saw that GNU Radio has many
functions
written that might help in certain conditions (OFDM, Trellis, audio,
video,
etc.), that’s very good, but I’m searching a way to integrate all that
into my
application.
What I need: my software will be run on a computer (Core2Duo processor
at 2
GHz)with an embedded OS (WIN or Linux), therefore my application willbe
able
to make many calculations, modulation, demodulation, set USRP parameters
very
fast, and so on. The software will be able to get some data from outside
with
the help of the USRP and send some data to different modules(maybe some
data,
at a very low data rate transfer,on 433 MHz ISM band, while using some
Manchester coding with my OOK- ON-OFF Keyingtransceiver - I will use a
scripting language (not python)like C or Pascal where I will tell USRP
what to
do - set frequency to a value, set decimation, form a certain package
from
various data and so on), so I want to get out from the I and Q data
received
from USRP a digital value 1000101110. OK, let’s suppose that I would use
Python,
how would I transfer data to my application (without saving data to file
and
read it back from my application)?In a few words: it will be a real
application, not ploting signals and other stuff. For example as I
understand,
it’s possible to receive data from two sources (two different
frequencies)
heaving the same data rate transfer, WOW, it would be quite nice.
How I imagined it to work: here is the UHD, with many functions to help
read
and set data from/to USRP. I connect from my application to the UHD.dll
and
start to use those functions from the dll file. Connect to the
gnuradio-core.dll, and make some signal processing (give raw data
received from
FPGA through USB and get values). Anyway I think I missunderstood GNU
Radio
workig methode. I’m trying to understand and to figure out how could I
integrate
all you have done in GNU Radio into my application, and use it
efficiently.
Could you give mesome ideas. I would appriciate any advice, you and
others
might give me. I know that I look like a stupid person, but all that
information
regarding UHD, USRP, GNU radio is messed up in my head and it needs some
answers
to put each piece where it belongs to.
Thank you very much. Please excuse me for bothering you with my
questions,
but I really need somebody like you to give me a few answers that I hope
will
help me to understand how does it work.
I wish everybody a very nice day.
Best regards,
Florian E…
From: Josh B. [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wed, February 16, 2011 8:25:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Question UHD, WINDOWS
As I mentioned a few times here, I really can’t install that GNU Radio in
Windows environment (I followed all steps found in those descriptions
regarding,how to install it with MinGW or CygWin). So I have to give it up and try to
I’m posting a uhd, gnuradio, and misc dependencies installer. Make sure
to set your PATH to the installed library dirs. The other pre-reqs come
with installers you can get from the internet and maybe I will upload
them later (python, numpy, pyqt, pygtk, etc…)
http://www.joshknows.com/download/gnuradio_port/
focuse on other solutions like UHD or maybe others. What I want to do is to
makesome simple data transfers on different frequencies, basic communication with
some modules made by me. Really I don’t need all that python stuff and all
thosedependencies problems. I was even thinking to control USRP from my application,
it would be much faster than using Python, but how to write the firmware into
The performance overhead of python is irrelevant because its not used in
the fast path. However, the developer overhead is. 
See /host/lib/usrp/usrp1/usrp1_ctrl.cpp
FPGA I could start to get and set things, send orders to the board to set
frequency, decimation, sampling rate or read/write raw data. Commands to drive
the USRP1 and my WBX daughterboard I could get from written source code (ex:
http://gnuradio.org/redmine/repositories/entry/gnuradio/usrp/host/lib/db_wbxng.cc),
,
anyway I’ll start to make the whole program with the help of FreePascal.
Lol ok
A second alternative would be to use UHD (documentation is very poor) because
Ok, whats missing for you?
it has support for USRP1, but after I read that I would have to get I don’t
knowwhat program to do something with the source code and to compile the UHD source
code and other steps I started to think if it’s a good idea, maybe I will have
http://www.ettus.com/uhd_docs/manual/html/build.html
the same problems encountered when installing GNU Radio on Windows OS, why
couldn’t they provide a simple DLL file for using it on all Win OS’s. Could
They can
anybody tell me how does UHD behave in Win OS? It’s easy to use it?
Its functionally identical under windows
As a final answer, based on my description I do expect too much from this
USRP1+WBX hardware or there are other people heaving the same problems?
Whats the problem?
_josh