[Discuss-gnuradio] re: Low cost hardware option

[Jamie Morken]

Hi,

I am interested in helping out with making some new gnuradio hardware that is compatible with the USRP daughterboards.  I worked with Matt doing CAD on the original gnuradio project hardware and have since then made lots more boards including a cyclone 3 board.

Here is a possible hardware configuration:
USB 3.0 transceiver IC or USB 3.0 microcontroller
Altera Cyclone3 FPGA
highspeed DAC/ADC

If we use just a single channel ADC and DAC (ie half a USRP v1) then we can get away with a smaller/cheaper FPGA and have a cheaper/simpler board that can be paralleled if needed (ie. two boards hooked up to USB 3.0)

Also we should pick a good open hardware license, here is one possibility I came across:
http://freedomdefined.org/OSHW_draft

I do all my work with Eagle CAD, and they sponsored a license for the gnuradio hardware project before, so we could look into getting a gnuradio specific license again or else consider using a free CAD program.

Here's an eagle cad board I made with a cyclone3 FPGA on it designed to interface to a powersupply:

http://rocketresearch.org/new/FPGA%20control%20module/FPGA%20control%20module%20PCB.png

cheers,
Jamie

[Discuss-gnuradio] Low cost hardware option

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From:	Euripedes Rocha Filho
Subject:	[Discuss-gnuradio] Low cost hardware option
Date:	Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:03:17 -0200

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Hi, i'm watching all discussion about poor students and the evil Mr 
Ettus who don't play like Santa Claus and whant to make some profit :). 
I'm also watching all topics and discussion regarding a low cost 
solution for use with GNURADIO. I guess we can have a cheap option to us
 and I'm very interested in work in such a solution. What I'm suggeting 
here is to take all people who want's to take the job and start a small 
project. I'm a embedded systems enthusiatic and was a "starving 
student", now I'm a starving engineer, since I'm unemployed, that have 
some time to work on this project. The first question is: Ok, we need a 
low cost solution with some possible applications  but what are the 
limits?