Bridge RF Design and Test Applications with NI SDR Platforms Jason Strydom Application Engineer National Instruments - Midrand
The National Instruments Vision To do for test and measurement what the spreadsheet did for financial analysis. Virtual Instrumentation 2
NI RF Test Platform Optimized APIs Cellular, Wireless, & GPS Test Toolkits (802.11 a/b/g/n, GSM, EDGE, WCDMA, RFID, WiMAX, GPS, etc.) Soft Front Panels Reference Architectures Multicore Processing VSAs & VSGs FPGA I/O & Co-processing 3 Amplifiers & Attenuators Switching Power Meters
The Next 30 Years: Expanding LabVIEW into System Design Design Verification Product Verification Research/Modeling Design/Simulation Verification/Validation Manufacturing 4
The National Instruments Vision Graphical System Design Test and Measurement Automated Test Data Acquisition Reconfigurable Instruments Real-time Systems Embedded Monitoring Hardware-in-the-loop Software Defined Radio Industrial and Embedded Industrial Control (PAC) Machine Control Electronic Devices To do for test and measurement what the spreadsheet did for financial analysis. To do for embedded what the PC did for the desktop. 5
From Concept to Prototype Rapidly! Graphical System Design Platform Design Simulate Prototype LabVIEW Graphical System Design offers one tool, integrated flow Shorter learning curve Easier system integration Reduce the time to hardware rapid prototyping! 6
Software Defined RF Software Defined Radio Low Cost Flexible Radio Quality Rapid Prototyping Modular RF Instruments Calibrated Rugged Cabled Instrumentation NI 5791R FlexRIO SDR NI 5644R VST 7
Concurrent Design and Test Design Verification/Validation Test System Design System Test Component Design Component Test Implementation NI 5791R FlexRIO SDR 8 NI 5644R VST
What is a Software Define Radio? Software Defined Radio (SDR) refers to the technology wherein software modules running on a generic hardware platform are used to implement radio functions.. 9
SDR Architecture Multi-Processor Subsystem Real-time signal processor Physical Layer (PHY) ex FPGA, DSP Host processor Medium Access Control (MAC) Rx/Tx control ex. Host GPP, multi-core CPU RF Front End General Purpose RF Dual LOs Contiguous Frequency Range Host Connection Determines Streaming Bandwidth Ex. Gigabit E-net, PCIe Baseband Converters 10
Socketed CLIP NI FlexRIO Adapter Module Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA CLIP CLIP CLIP Adapter Module LabVIEW FPGA VI PXI/PXIe Bus Socketed CLIP DRAM Memory Socketed CLIP DRAM Memory 11
SDR Hardware Platforms Features Frequency Range: 200 MHz to 4.4 GHz FPGA: Kintex -7 Bandwidth: 100 & 200 MHz Host I/F: PXIe (~3.2 GB/s) Coming Q4 NI 579x (RF FAM) PXIe-7975R (FlexRIO) Features Frequency Range: 50 MHz to 6 GHz FPGA: Host processing Bandwidth: 20 MHz bandwidth Host I/F: Gigabit Enet (~100 MB/s) NI 12
NI Radio Prototyping Platform LabVIEW based Software Defined Radio Host-based processing simplifies signal processing Immediate access to real-world signals 20 MHz of real-time bandwidth make the solution available to a wide range of applications Flexible Easy to use Affordable 13
NI Tunable RF Transceiver Front Ends Frequency Range 50 MHz 2.2 GHz (NI-2920) 2.4 GHz & 5.5 GHz (NI-2921) 400 MHz 4.4 GHz (NI-2922) Signal Processing and Synthesis NI LabVIEW to develop and explore algorithms NI Modulation Toolkit and LabVIEW add-ons to simulate or process live signals Applications FM Radio TV GPS GSM Zigbee Safety Radio OFDM Radar Dynamic Spectrum Access 1 Gigabit Ethernet Connectivity Plug-and-play capability Up to 25 MS/s baseband IQ streaming 14
Benefits of the NI Platform User Experience Productivity Maintainability Documentation Technical Support Extendable 1 Year Warranty CE Certification International Sales 15
NI Applications Academic Government Industry Rapid Prototyping Physical Layer Design Record and Playback GPS simulator Academic education MIMO Communications intelligence Surveillance Deployable radio.. And much, much more! Record & Playback Safety Radio 16
BRIDGING DESIGN AND TEST 17
RF System Design and Validation Rapidly prototype and test new standards Create repeatable real-world stimulus Characterize receiver performance FM Radio GPS and more 18
Low-cost RF Modulated Source More realistic with extended dynamic range PXI and control within single LabVIEW VI Extendable to many applications NI Interferer Test Signal + Signal of Interest Strong Interferer PXI NI PXI-5673 VSG NI PXI-5695 Programmable Attenuator Combiner Output Signal to Test FM Radio 19
GPS Simulation & Test Things to Simulate Poor signal strength View of satellites obstructed Position constantly changing GPS receiver behaves as if it see s real satellites GPS toolkit Creates Signal in LabVIEW NI -2920 Generates Signal GPS Receiver Precision Clock (10 MHz OCXO) 20
Playback Record GPS Record & Playback Record and play back up to 20 MHz of bandwidth Repeatable testing of algorithms / devices on realistic dataset Supplement a PXI lab with low-cost playback at your desk 21
RF / COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH 22
MIMO Radio Prototyping Plug and play 2x2 MIMO Driver based synchronization Reference designs available Maximal Ratio Combining 2x2 MIMO - Alamouti Coding Alamouti Coding 23
NI Research Case Study: Physical Layer Prototyping Dr. Murat Torlak Continuously monitoring multiple wifi channels Demodulation and descrambling of 802.11b beacon signals Identification of hotspots, tracking relative power levels Demodulate Descramble 802.11b SSID Decoding Carrier Detection Frequency Offset Estimation & Correction Demodulation & Descrambling Interpret the frame for SSID 24
NI Research Case Study: Algorithm Research Cleaning Up Dirty RF Established a live, over-the-air communication OFDM link 1024 subcarriers 256-QAM modulation per subcarrier bit rate of about 1.4 Mbps on laptop LabVIEW host-based VIs Imported m-file scripts Extensive use of Mathscript RT ~2 month timeframe reducing project time by 2/3 25
NI Research Case Study: NI 8x8 MIMO Testbed Adaptable from 2x2 to 8x8 Algorithm design in MathScript RT External Clock Ref in PPS in TX 1 Dr. Robert Heath Director WNCG University of Texas at Austin Transmit MIMO Cable TX 2 128 subcarrier OFDM, 4 QAM, spatial diversity Independently clocked, phase coherent Tx & Rx Network Cable Host Computer TX 3 TX 5 TX 7 MIMO Cable MIMO Cable MIMO Cable TX 4 TX 6 TX 8 Network Cable Gigabit Ethernet Switch Receive Rx 1 MIMO Cable Rx 2 Network Cable Rx 3 Rx 5 MIMO Cable MIMO Cable Rx 4 Rx 6 Rx 7 MIMO Cable Rx 8 26 External Clock
NI Research Case Study: Position Detection & Localization Testing MUSIC direction finding algorithm Rapid prototyping in LabVIEW with MathScript RT Synchronized up to12 devices Reference provides continuous phase alignment compensation External Clock Prof. Athanassios Manikas Comm & Array Processing Chair Imperial College, London Ref in PPS in RX 1 RX 2 Direction Finding (uniform linear array) Network Cable RX 3 Host Computer RX 4 Network Cable Gigabit Ethernet Switch TX Calibration Signal 27
Research: Downloadable Reference Designs 8x8 MIMO-OFDM /usrp Tx GPS Simulation RF Record & Playback RF Direction Finding & Localization 28
FM DEMOD - DEMO 29
RF / COMMUNICATIONS EDUCATION & TRAINING 30
Digital Communications Bundle Bundle Contents Two NI -2920 + Toolkits MIMO Cable Digital Comm Lab Manual Target Courses Communication Systems Digital & Wireless Communications Software Defined Radio (SDR) Key Benefits Affordable Accessible NI Supported TX & RX Real RF Signals Scales to Research 31
Lab Ready Packet Radio & OFDM Digital Communications Labs by Dr. Robert Heath, UT Austin Communications Systems Labs by Dr. Sachin Katti, Stanford 1 QPSK AWGN Simulator 2.1 Modulation /Demodulation 2.2 Pulse Shaping 3 Energy Detection 4 Equalization 5 Frame Detection 6 Intro to OFDM 7 Frequency Correction & Sync 8 OFDM Channel Coding 1 Source Coding 2 Packet Communication, Sync, and Channel Correction 3 Modulation 4 Demodulation 5 Design Challenge: Packet based Transceiver (Ships in Bundle) (FREE: /courseware) 32
NI at Stanford University Student Course Feedback: Awesome class! I really enjoyed the lectures, where I learned a lot, and the labs were really cool because we got to use the hardware. I am glad that I took this class! Source: Stanford EE 49: Teaching Evaluations (Spring Quarter 2011)
NI at Stanford University with the NI, we re able to provide exposure in introductory courses for the first time. Students rated the class 4.94/5.0, likely making it one of the highest ratings among all classes in the School of Engineering at Stanford. Dr. Sachin Katti [ Electrical & Computer Engineering] 34
RF / COMMUNICATIONS ADVANCED RESEARCH 35
NI Leading the Way to 5G Wireless 36
NI and TU Dresden Collaborate on 5G Wireless 5G Lab and Test Bed 5G PHY exploration and prototyping Using LabVIEW Graphical System Design Dr. Gerhard Fettweis 37
SDR S/W Development Challenge Tools Targets Math (.m file script) Host Control (C, C++,.NET) Simulation (Hybrid) DSP (Fxd pt C, Assembly) User Interface (HTML) FPGA (VHDL, Verilog) H/W Driver (C, Assembly) System Debug FPGAs Multicore Processors SDR development requires multiple S/W tools Parallel processing increases system complexity S/W tools don t address system design Long learning curves Limited reuse Need for specialists Increased costs Increased time-to-result 38
Parallel Programming with LabVIEW Task Parallelism Data Parallelism Pipelining Multicore Processors FPGAs 39
NI Platforms for RF/Communications Graphical System Design Platform for LabVIEW NI RF Generator, RF Analyzer NI FlexRIO NI RF 6 GHz P2P VST Host Embedded, PC FPGA RIO 40
Summary LabVIEW offers a graphical approach, shortening the design process, and tight hardware/software integration that allows for seamless transition from design to test NI provides a full spectrum of RF / Communications solutions: RF Test, Research and Education LabVIEW and NI is an accessible, easyto-use software defined radio platform 41
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