Activity

The gr-ccsds GNU Radio out-of-tree (OOT) module provides a set of transceivers implementing the CCSDS recommendations for telemetry and telecommand synchronization and channel coding.

The implementation follows the specifications desscribed in the CCSDS blue books CCSDS 131.0-B-3 , CCSDS 231.0-B-3 and CCSDS 401.0-B-28

Code Repository | Documentation | Report

There is an increased interest in using commercially-grade SDR boards on board smaller satellites, sometimes with only some additional shielding. To achieve this, radiation test of commercial SDR boards is basic.
This activity will focus on the Characterization of Radiation resistance of the SDRs. The objective of this project is the first part of the categorization for 6 SDRs. For this reason we research the radiation each one of these boards can withstand according to the method and the materials used for its production according to previous research made and published.

Code Repository | Documentation

Gr-leo is a GNU Radio Out-of-Tree module that simulates the telecommunication channel between orbiting satellites and Ground Stations.
Gr-leo aspires to fill a gap with the implementation of a GNU Radio module that simulates the operation of an Earth-Satellite system and a variety of impairments that my occur during the space channel communication. For example, frequency shift due to the Doppler effect, the variable path loss due to the satellite's trajectory or the atmospheric effects along the path are proven to pose significant degradation on the communication channel.

Code Repository | Documentation

gr-soapy is a GNURadio wrapper for the SoapySDR library.
The goal of this project was the implementation of gr-soapy, an Out Of Tree module for the GNURadio platform. The module provides source and sink blocks for a variety of SDR devices using SoapySDR, a generalized C/C++ library which provides abstraction in interfacing with different SDR devices and vendors.

Code Repository | Documentation

The purpose of this activity is evaluate currently available SDR hardware and software from a satellite communications point of view. The evaluation will include both analytical assessments of the hardware and software capabilities, as well as lab tests supplemented by over the air usage of the systems.

Repository | Documentation | Report

LDPC decoding is the most computational demanding task in a DVB-S2 receiver chain. This activity we aim at providing an optimized library capable of decoding LDPC frames in real-time on a modern general purpose processor. The development focus will be on leveraging modern hardware parallelism in terms of single instruction multiple data (SIMD), cache architectures, and multiple threading to reach high decoding efficiency. This task will be realized in the REDS institute of the HEIG-VD in Yverdon, Switzerland.

Repository | Rerport

Machine learning, and Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) in particular, are gaining traction in many fields of application obtaining very encouraging results. In the SDR domain there are relatively few attempts of adopting DNNs. One limiting factor to a broader adoption of these methods is the relative complexity of the deployment of trained models in an SDR context. In this activity we will design an out-of-tree GNU Radio module that allows easy and efficient deployment of inference DNN modules within a GNU Radio block diagram. This task will also explore the possibilities and the limitations inherent in the integration of GPU and FPGA acceleration in SDR context. This task will be realized in the REDS institute of the HEIG-VD in Yverdon, Switzerland.

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the objective of this proposal is to study and apply deep learning techniques in satellite signals, aiming to classify a previously detected signal (possibly using a DNN for the detection) in an a priori known family of signals, i.e., modulation schemes. An automated AI system that could recognize the received signal with increased accuracy and low latency is of high importance for an SDR system which aims at avoiding interference and/or changes the telecommunication scheme to establish communication with additional ground stations or other spacecraft.

Repository

The main scope of this activity is to act as a foundation for FPGA related sub-activities by testing available open source tool chains for FPGA programming with a selection of popular FPGA platforms. Each tool chain will be evaluated against each FPGA platform in order to determine its strengths and weaknesses. During this process a basic set of FPGA programming tasks will be performed and evaluated. For toolchains that provide an API for extending hardware compatibility, support for additional hardware may be implemented depending on the subactivity timeframe and the maturity of the toolchain/API. As a result, a feature matrix will be created and possible investment on FPGA open source projects will also be assessed. All results and findings will be compiled in a sharable Technical Document.

Repository

the objective of this proposal is to study and apply deep learning techniques in satellite signals, aiming to detect the presence of useful information in highly noisy time-series. An automated AI system that could discriminate between noise and useful payload with increased accuracy and low latency is of high importance for an SDR system which provides spectrum sensing functionality and aims at avoiding interference

Repository

The primary objective of this activity is to provide a lightweight, yet complete spectrum analysis mechanism using the SDR technology. Initially the main focus will be on ground analysis. As a secondary objective, we will investigate optimizations and modifications that could enable the spectrum analysis to be performed in-orbit and especially by CPU/power limited devices. Such a system can be used around the world to identify possible misuses of the licenced spectrum, spot interference sources or identify spectrum opportunities in the unlicensed bands. In addition, spectrum monitoring can provide insights regarding the spectrum utilization and assist the selection of the band that will provide the performance for the satellite - earth communication. The main axes that should be followed are (a) on the minimization of the resources required for the spectrum analysis, (b) on the efficient multi-band monitoring, and (c) on the capability of interacting with A.I. systems for in-depth inspection. Furthermore, a study on the required arithmetic accuracy will be performed in order to be able to predict the performance in restricted processing units like FPGAs. Towards, the aforementioned paths a proper simulation environment will be implemented, with all the essential subsystems and parameters. The simulation will provide a solid software testbed, where everything will be evaluated before testing it on the real hardware.

Repository

The iqzip library provides a simple API to facilitate the compression/decompression of raw IQ signal recordings and their characterization through metafile generation.

Repository | Report

Modern mobile handsets do have powerful processors that allow for signal processing in combination with SDR boards. The aim of this project is to research available software libraries that could potentially be used for this purpose and, if possible, implement a proof-of-concept system capable of receiving, decoding and displaying satellite data. NOAA satellites are a good target because of their signal strength and well-known encoding standards. APT modulation scheme was chosen because of its low CPU demand and good signal quality.

Repository

The Software Defined Radio Testbed system plans to become an essential tool for the research and development of SDR-based satellite communication systems. This test bed will allow early experimentation and testing of new algorithms and configurations. The implementation of an SDR Testbed system will span from software and hardware development to integration of various SDR toolchains and hardware components.

Repository

During the development of several SDR applications, we realized that the data transfers between a host PC and an SDR board are limited to rates much lower than the hardware specifications allow. Most low cost SDR platforms make use of USB or Ethernet connections as means of communication. During this activity, all components involved in data communication between the host PC and the SDR platform will be analyzed and studied in depth. Our proposal is a complete study of the structure and management of the communication link, from the drivers on the PC side, to the performance evaluation of the communication protocol, focusing also on the effectiveness of the architecture and on the HDL code implemented into the SDR’s FPGA.The goal of the activity is to identify one or more performance bottlenecks and, if possible, propose viable and concrete solutions to solve or circumvent them.

Report

Advances in IC design have brought the cost of microwave direct-sampling HW down from 10s of thousand dollarsto thousands. A single-chip ADC can now sample at several GS/s, and higher bands are accessible through high-bandwidth sample-and-hold devices (under sampling). On some ADC chips, a good S/H is integrated, allowingbandwidth sampling up to 8GHz (X band). With external S/H chips, frequency bands of 30GHz and above are nowaccessible. This allows bandwidths of 1-2GHz up to Ka band. Decimating to lower bandwidths allows high dynamicranges. DACs are available with update rates of 12GS/s and above. To reach higher frequencies, analog mixers canbe used, or band pass filters to select a spectral line in the nth Nyquist zone. Designing such boards requires a lot ofexperience in RF circuitry and fast digital circuitry. This activity would make a direct-sampling SDR platformavailable to makers or SMEs to realize functions as high-bandwidth receivers, satellite eavesdropping, radar, electro-optics, full digital satellite transponder or scientific applications.

Repository | Repository