Software Radio

Overview

This is a project to create a software radio device that uses USB-2.0 to deliver raw data.

Why software radio ?

Software radio has many advantages:

Goals

Tasks

Other projects

Take a look at gnu-radio webpage for other projects. In particular there is a board designed by Matt Ettus's group that you can buy from Ettus Research LLC website.

SR-7.0

SR-7.0 is the latest variant of FX2 chip + ADC board.

Features:

Pictures

The pictures are of SR-7.0i board revision. The PCB files (below) are for later revision, with small bugs corrected (like absence of 100K resistor across USB power pins).

You can click on the images to get full-resolution pictures.

Parts side

Surface mount side

Screenshot

Making your own

I have not bothered to make a schematic as the design is a straighforward combination of FX2 ATA evaluation board (chop off ATA connector) and AD9283 evaluation board (chop off all ICs except AD9283).

I did, however, write a bunch of Tcl/Tk scripts that serve a similar function (have a description of all connections) and produce a preliminary layout for PCB. You can think of them as a "TeX for boards" (note: it is *not* as easy as LaTeX so some tweaking is required to position parts and make traces).

The SR-7.0j PCB layout was created with the wonderful PCB program. Futurlec had no problem producing it from Gerber files generated by PCB. Note: I did not order silk screening, so it is somewhat screwed up on the board layout - overlaps parts, etc.

Here are some notes on board assembly in case anyone wants to tinker with their own board:

Parts list

Frontends

So far I only have a hastily sketched schematic of 50 ohm BNC frontend and photodiode one. Hopefully this gives some idea of how to use the board. I'll post more as they become available (perhaps learn to use gschem along the way).

Links and References

IC manufacturers

Open Source Tools

Miscellaneous

http://volodya-project.sourceforge.net/SR/sr.php was last modified 7:15pm Saturday, December 31st 2005