Investigation on USB 2.0 in software-defined radio

Abstract

Software-defined radio (SDR) is one of the most popular technologies of radio communication. With the rapid development of general purpose processor (GPP), SDR based on GPP (GPP-SDR) attracts more and more developers' attention. Using USB 2.0 as the data and control interface between RF front end and personal computer (PC) further increases the flexibility of GPP-SDR systems. In this paper, we focus on the application and capability of USB2.0 and investigate the possibility of using USB 2.0 as data interface for SDR systems. According to the experiments, USB 2.0 can achieve peak data rate up to 320Mbps under Windows OS. Furthermore, the round-trip data transfer latency is measured and proved to be low enough to support TD-SCDMA. The high throughput and the low latency ensure that USB2.0 could be applied as an interface in GPP-SDR systems.