Universal Software Radio Peripheral/GNU Radio-Based Implementation of a Software-Defined Radio Communication System

Abstract

Challenges involved in space communications across wireless channels call for new approaches to radio systems. Due to the growing need for frequency change in modern wireless systems, an adaptive radio system has the highest demand. Software-defined radios (SDR) offer this type of adaptivity as well as compatibility with other standard platforms such as USRP/GNU radio. Despite limitations of this approach due to hardware components, viable modeling and simulation as well as deployable systems are possible using this platform. This chapter presents a detailed implementation procedure for a USRP/GNU radio-based SDR communication system that can be used for practical experiments as well as an academic lab in this field. In this experiment the USRP has been configured to receive signal from a local radio station using the BasicRX model daughterboard. The programmable USRP executes Python block code implemented in the GNU Radio Companion (GRC) on Ubuntu OS.