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PEARS For Basic Users

GNU Radio based

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Programmable Platform for Experiments

& Academic Research on SDR
(PEARS)
SDR development platform is a powerful combination of configurable

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hardware and open-source software.

Enables experimentation with wide range of wireless technologies
such as AM, FM, QAM, OFDM etc.
Has an RF front end for radio with interface to PC/Embedded
Computer for baseband processing.
Works as a standalone radio too.
Provides GNU Radio, MATLAB, Simulink interfaces.

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GNU Radio A Brief Intro

A free and open-source software development framework that enables
users to design, simulate and deploy Software Defined Radios and
other general signal processing systems.
Part of GNU Project licensed under GNU General Public
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License (GPL) and copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation.

Supported globally by the open-source community and widely used in
hobbyist, academic, and commercial environments.
Wraps functionality in easy-to-use reusable blocks, provides an
extensive library of standard algorithms.
Can be used with external RF hardware to create SDRs, or without
hardware in a simulation-like environment.
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About GNU Radio Implementation

GNU Radio provides a library of signal processing blocks which can be
connected together in the form of graphs that process infinite streams of data.
Software structure of GNU Radio consists of two levels
Signal processing blocks written in C++.
Python, the higher level language, used to create a network or graph and
glue those blocks together.
SWIG (Software Wrapper Interface Generator) provides the interfaces
between C++ and Python, so that these functions can be called directly in
Python, without worrying about their implementation details in C++.
Flowgraphs that depicts the connections between the blocks in GNU Radio
are in the form of Python files.
GNU Radio Companion (GRC), GNU Radio's graphical tool is a Python codegeneration tool used to create Python flowgraph files graphically as opposed
to creating them in code alone.
Flowgraph when 'compiled' in GRC, generates Python code that creates the
desired GUI windows and widgets, and creates and connects the blocks in the
flowgraph.
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Developing Waveforms Using PEARS

Module in GNU Radio

To provide application programming interface to PEARS, developed a GNU Radio

Module named SDRP.
Source code : /gnuradio-master/gr-sdrp
SDRP Module makes use of LIBIIO, a library written in C++, that abstracts the
low-level details of the hardware to interface with IIO Framework.
Libiio composed of following backends:
local backend, which interfaces the Linux kernel through the sysfs virtual
filesystem
network backend, which interfaces the iiod server through a network
link.
The SDRP blocks are just a tiny wrapper around Libiio
SDRP Module includes
SDRP Sink-used to configure the transmission parameters of RF Front end
SDRP Source-used to configure the receive parameters of RF Front end
Above blocks together with several pre-assembled signal processing blocks in
GNU Radio facilitates implementation of RF waveforms in PEARS.

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PEARS Sink

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PEARS Sink
Set to localhost if using GNU Radio on the
PEARS board. If using GNU Radio on a PC,
set this field to IP of the PEARS Board.
Unique ID of the
PEARS Sink GRC
block

Local Oscillator frequency

-70 MHz t o 6 GHz

Frequency at which the

hardware will input/output
samples. Max 122.88Msps

Data input rate of the block

= (Sample
rate/interpolation)

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RF Tx Bandwidth
-200 kHz to 56 MHz

Size of the buffer that holds

the samples to be written to
the hardware
If true, first buffer of
samples will be repeated on
the enabled channels until
the program is stopped.

Enable the TX channels,

Channel 1 TX1-I
Channel 2 TX1-Q
Channel 3 TX2-I
Channel 4 TX2-Q

Selecting the Tx port

A or B

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Attenuation in Tx channels,
-0 to -89.75dB with a
resolution of 0.25dB.

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PEARS Source

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PEARS Source
Set to localhost if using GNU Radio on the
ARM processor of PEARS . If
using GNU Radio on a PC, set this field to
IP of the PEARS.

Unique ID of the
PEARS Sink GRC block

Local Oscillator frequency70 MHz t o 6 GHz

Frequency at which the

hardware will input/output
samples. Max 122.88Msps

Size of the buffer that

holds the samples from
the hardware

Data output rate of the block = (Sample

rate/decimation)

Address of the AD9361 register in

Hex format which is to be read

Address of the AD9361

register in Hex format
which is to be written

Value to be written to the AD9361 register

Enable the RX channels,

Channel 1 RX1-I
Channel 2 RX1-Q
Channel 3 RX2-I
Channel 4 RX2-Q

If True enables the Quadrature tracking

If True enables the RF DC Offset tracking
If True enables the Baseband DC Offset tracking

Gain in Rx channels,
Max gain 73 dB with a
resolution of 1dB.

Select one of the following Rx Gain modes:

Manual, Slow attack, Fast attack, Hybrid
Select one of the following RF Ports:
A_BALANCED,B_BALANCED, C_BALANCED, A_N,
B_N, C_N, A_P, BA_P, C_P

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RF Rx Bandwidth
200 kHz to 56 MHz

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Live Demo
How To Construct A Simple Flow graph
Using PEARS In GNU Radio ?

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Demo Set Up

PEARS in Network mode (RF loopback between the TX1 and RX1 channels.)
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Thank You

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