Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] USRP w/ 4-bit I&Q samples

[Paul Creekmore]

Well, I'm hoping to have 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16-bit quantization options tested and working by the end of the month, if not within the next two weeks.  We're debugging an implementation right now.

But for full integration into GNU Radio, there are several other considerations that my group has not been addressing.  We're only writing data to disk, using our own C++ program that uses only the lower-level GNU Radio libraries to access and control the USRP.  I don't have a very good sense as to what it would take to "propagate" new quantization options throughout the rest of GNU Radio to make them available to the higher-level Python scripts.  The data needs to be unpacked somewhere along the way, too.

Additionally, the existing quantization algorithm that converts 16-bit samples to 8-bit samples looks like it may not be the best for lower quantization levels.

So while I expect to have the USRP soon delivering quantized, packed data, handling it on the host side in GNU Radio is another task.

--Paul


Nagaraj C Shivaramaiah wrote:

Hi Paul and Tyrel,

I'm also in a similar situation to get the maximum bandwidth possible,
but just started... For me 2 bit quantization is sufficient

I've started modifying the FPGA firmware but I think it will take some
time before I implement and test it thoroughly..

Any approximate time frame that you are planning to complete this
activity?  I'm also keen to contribute if I'm fast enough..

Nagaraj,
PhD Candidate,
University of New South Wales


On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 6:36 AM, Paul Creekmore <address@hidden> wrote:
  

 We'll be looking into the possibility of contributing the new FPGA
configuration to GNU Radio once our code has been tested and refined.

 --Paul




 Tyrel Newton wrote:
Paul,


Would you mind sharing your implementation along with any accompanying
documentation? We are making some modifications to the FPGA firmware
ourselves  (mods for a much more application specific usage) and while I'm
not sure how far we'll get with needing the 4-bit samples, we'd happily
share any test/usage results if we get there.


Tyrel


On Apr 8, 2008, at 9:18 AM, Paul Creekmore wrote:


 Tyrel,

 The current FPGA configuration does not support 4-bit samples, but it is
possible to modify the configuration (Verilog code) to convert the samples
to 4-bit.

 My research group is currently working on adding 1, 2, and 4-bit
quantization options to the USRP, as well as accompanying data packing to
maximize the number of samples that we can squeeze across the USB interface
and thus also the receivable signal bandwidth.  We've not yet tested the
modifications.

 --Paul

 Tyrel Newton wrote:
<div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: -moz-fixed">We have an
application where the overall accuracy of the A/D converter is not terribly
important but where we need as high a sampling rate as we can get. To this
end, we found and intend to use the 8-bit option that allows for 8-bit I and
Q signals instead of the normal 16-bit. However, is there a similar option
that allows for 4-bit I and Q samples? Or similarly, would it be relatively
easy to implement a 4-bits per sample scheme, possibly w/ slight
modifications to the USRP firmware? Any feedback and/or advice is greatly
appreciated.

 Regards,
 Tyrel



 </div>


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