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© 2015 Michel Barbeau
Software Defined Radio
be understood. Any solvable problem can be solved! It is only a matter of time.
Two SDR platforms that meet these conditions are the Universal Software Radio Peripheral and High Performance Software Defined Radio. They are both
introduced hereafter. This section also includes an overview of SDRs used for
tactical communications.
Universal Software Radio Peripheral
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2.1.1
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Figure 2.1: The USRP.
In this subsection, we review the hardware architecture of the Universal Software Radio Peripheral version 2 (USRP2) [14]. The USRP2 bridges the analog
world of electromagnetic radio waves and digital world of computers, on which
the actual processing of signals is done, e.g., demodulation and modulation.
The USRP2 is an independent hardware box connected to a computer using a
point-to-point network connection, actually an Ethernet cable. Figure 2.1 is a
photo of a USRP2 unit. Top-right, there is a SMA connector for the antenna,
with the label RF2. Below, there is a port for pluging in an Ethernet cable connecting the USRP2 unit to a computer. The hardware structure of the USRP2
is modular. It contains two main types of boards: a motherboard and one or
several daughter boards. The motherboard consists of two Analog to Digital
Converters (ADCs), two Digital to Analog Converters (DACs), Digital Down
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CHAPTER 2. SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO ARCHITECTURE