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SDR COMMUNICATION KIT (SCK)

SDR COMMUNICATION KIT (SCK)

SCK enables true SDR development directly from classroom Matlab/LabView simulations through the USB interface. SCK is specially designed for Digital/Analog Communication Labs.

Overview
SDR communication kit (SCK) is a USB based plug and play device, designed for organizations and communication labs involved in the study, research and development of communication systems especially software defined radios. It can be used to readily build real-time communication systems by directly applying the concepts learnt from theory with a minimum of implementation effort in the hardware. One of its main advantages is that it provides direct interface, through USB port, with powerful simulation and analysis tools like Matlab/Simulink, Lab-View, GNU Radio etc. Computational and visualization capabilities offered by these tools can be used to design and analyze communication systems directly from simulations. This blending of theory and practice makes SCK an ideal candidate for analog/digital communication labs because this aspect is generally missing from most of the communication courses. Theoretical performance of various techniques can now be quickly compared with their performance in a real-world environment. Furthermore it provides a unique opportunity to the researchers working on receiver design to verify their algorithms in various practical scenarios.
Specifications
Attributes
Frequency Range
Intermediate Frequency
Mode Of Operation
Transmission Bandwidth
Output Power
RF I/O Impedance
Antenna
Power Supply
Configuration Interface
Data Interface
Application Interface
Operating System
Values
3-30 MHz
10 kHz
Time division duplexed (TDD)
20 KHz
100 mW
50 ohms
Whip (Adjustable)
USB Powered
USB 2.0
USB port
Matlab, Lab-View, GNU Radio, Python, C/C++
Windows, Linux
Features
HIGHLIGHTS
  • More than 15 built-in PSK, QAM and FSK waveforms
  • Python/C APIs to modify existing or write custom modules
  • Signal recording at any stage of Tx/Rx processing chain
  • Graphical analysis with eye-diagram, scatter plot, time and frequency plots
APPLICATIONS
  • Software defined radios
  • Rapid prototyping of tactical radios and other communication systems
  • Receiver algorithm design and verification
  • Digital communication labs
Functional Description
TRANSMITTER OPERATION
For the transmitter operation, communication waveforms are generated from the software tools running on the host computer at a low intermediate frequency (IF) of 12 KHz. SCK connects to USB port and appears as a Sound Card on Host computer. The generated waveform is sent to SCK in analog form via digital to analog converter (DAC) of SCK. SCK takes this IF signal and performs frequency up-conversion to the desired carrier frequency. This signal is further amplified, filtered and transmitted by the antenna. SCK is configurable from the host computer through USB interface and user can control transmission parameters like carrier frequency and output power level etc. from the host computer.
RECEIVER OPERATION

At the receiver end, another SCK receives the RF signal through its antenna and performs a series of receiver operations like channel filtering, low noise amplification, and frequency down-conversion from RF to IF. This IF signal, which is available is sampled by the SCK’s ADC and is provided as an input to the software application on the host computer through a USB Interface. User can either develop their own Matlab/Simulink models or can use Renzym SDR Framework (RSF) application for performing receive filtering, quadrature down-conversion, and sampling rate reduction to produce complex baseband (in-phase and quadrature) signals. This baseband signal is further processed for receiver tasks like carrier and timing synchronization, equalization and error correction coding, etc. Renzym SDR Framework (RSF) can be used to perform the above-mentioned receiver tasks for a wide range of modulation schemes.

Documentation
Name
Lab Manual
Brochure
Version
Version 1.2
-
Release Notes
Digital Communication lab added
-
Release Date
Feb 25, 2014
Product Brief
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