SDR: Spectrum ChallengeAdvisors: Prof. J. V. Krogmeier, Prof. D.J. LoveGraduate Mentor: Joon Young KimMembers: Sutton Hathorn, Eric Rice, Muhammet Yazmyradov

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

(1)USRP2 Ports(3) USRP Ports

(2) USRP2 Board(4) USRP Board

Goal: Develop a radio protocol that most effectively transmit data through a communication channel in the presence of interfering signals.

• All teams transmit on the same frequency, so the competition tries to find effective ways to transmit data over crowded frequencies.

• Both a competitive and a cooperative competition occur

• Competition is run on the ORBIT test bed

• Teams are judged on the time taken to transmit a series of packets between two radios

• Signal processing and systems. Some experience with communication systems and digital signal processing 

• ECE301,  ECE438,  and ECE 440 are all used in SDR technology

• Good programming skills (Python, C++) and knowledge of Linux

• Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been typically implemented in hardware are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system.

• This allows the radio to be instantly reconfigured via programming.

• One physical radio can be used for a multitude of purposes

DARPA SPECTRUM CHALLENGE

SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO

GNU RADIO SOFTWARE

DSSS/BPSK PROTOCOLS

TESTING WITH THE USRP

• The Universal Software Radio Peripheral is the hardware platform being used to test and implement the radio protocols developed with the GNU Radio software.

• The USRP B200 has a bandwidth of 56MHz• It has a frequency range of 70MHz to 6GHz

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

• An open source software development toolkit• Provides programming framework to perform  

signal processing for a variety of   communication systems

• GNU Radio Companion (GRC) provides a graphical flowchart based development environment

-Direct Sequence spread spectrum is a technique that modulates the information signal and carrier with a spreading signal to use more bandwidth.

-BPSK (Binary phase-shift keying)is a digital modulation technique that changes the phase of a carrier wave to convey information.

-The resulting wider signal is more resistant to acute interference and the channel can be used by multiple users simultaneously