NC-10 USRP

Channelization Toolkit
 Channelization and
Channelized Receivers
NC-10 USRP Channelizer combines excellent performance with low cost and small
footprint. It provides four 80 MHz RF-inputs and can channelize phase coherently on
all inputs, making it possible to create direction finding systems and many other types
of applications.

Signals of Interest

Spectrum monitoring and signal analysis This extraction can be achieved by filtering
have many application areas, both civilian and and decimating the wideband signal, resulting
military. The RF spectrum is getting crowded in a lower sample rate that contains only the
and having the right tools to acquire and signal of interest. By using channelization, it is
analyze the wireless environment is crucial. possible to use a single wideband receiver and
still analyze thousands of signals.
When monitoring a wideband source, many
different signals of interest must be analyzed, NC-10 USRP Channelizer is a toolkit for
demodulated, decoded, or processed in USRP-2955. It contains software as well as
other ways. However, processing the entire FPGA-bitfiles to turn the device into a powerful
wideband source for every signal of interest channelized receiver, allowing users and
is not effective. Instead, the signals of interest system integrators to extract signals of interest
should be extracted from the wideband source from four phase synchronized RF-inputs.
so that each signal is processed individually.

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Use Cases
Direction Finding
The USRP 2955 supports sharing LOs
between the RF inputs which gives
phase synchronized acquisition. This
combined with phase synchronized
channelization allows the user to
create powerful direction finding
application with up to 128 direction
finding channels.
Direction Finding Direction Finding
Station NC-10 USRP Station NC-10 USRP

COMINT Beamforming
The four RF inputs can be configured individually The USRP 2955, with its’ four RF-inputs,
and cover four separate bands of 80 MHz. Up to is capable to alone, or stacked with several
512 channels in total can be extracted from the USRPs’, provide beamforming capabilities.
inputs. The channels will continuously stream the This means that an otherwise omnidirectional
channelized data for further processing. Because antenna lobe can be electronically manipulated
the stream is continuous it is possible to use it for to obtain directivity features.
demodulation of signals and listen to traffic.
Directivity features can be used to enhance
reception of signals in desired directions and to
discriminate signals in undesired directions.
High Channel Count Systems
More synchronized RF inputs and channels
leads to higher accuracy in many algorithms. By
Reducing Data Rates
using the octoclock clock distributor module it is
possible to synchronize channelization across Due to data bandwidth limitations, reducing
multiple USRP devices making it possible to the data rate is important when transferring
connect large arrays of antennas. data between different locations. Covering a
wide RF bandwidth means large data rates
and 80 MHz is approximately 400 MBps. By
extracting the signals of interests and discarding
Geolocation
undesired data, the data rate can be drastically
GPS timestamping and positioning can be used decreased.
to synchronize systems across large distances.
Direction finding applications can, together
with other DF-systems provide a geo location
by using triangulation techniques.

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 USRP System Setup
NC-10 USRP is a building block for larger systems and is designed to easily be integrated
into other environments. NC-10 USRP can be connected to Windows computers with a
PCIe or Expresscard-slot and connected to other systems in different ways.

A B

PCIe PCIe

C D

PCIe PCIe

SFP+ SFP+ TCP/IP

Commands

The simplest setup connects USRP-2955 to a be connected to a switch instead and the data is
single computer/server running NC-10 API. Both distributed across the network (C).
RF-data and channelized data is streamed to
the computer (A). NC-10 can also be used as a channelization
server and the computer connected to the USRP
To increase the streaming rate an additional via PCIe is then also connected to a network
network interface card with SFP+ connections and receives commands from other computers,
can be added to the computer to stream the telling NC-10 server which frequencies to
data (B). channelize (D).

If processing needs to be distributed across

multiple computers, the SFP+ connections can

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RF Frontend
The USRP-2955 features four two-stage
superheterodyne receiver channels. Each of
the four inputs have a real-time bandwidth
of 80 MHz and are tunable in a span from 10
MHz to 6 GHz. The inputs can be configured to
share LO to enable phase coherent acquisition,
or independently to be able to cover a larger
frequency span. Data from the RF inputs can
be streamed from the USRP to be analyzed and
identify signals of interest.

Channelization
The heart of NC-10 USRP is the FPGA-based
channelization and the user can configure up
512 channels in total with no restrictions on
which RF input the channels use as source.
The channels can be made to overlap, have
different bandwidth and are independent
of each other, unless they are configured
for phase synchronized channelization. The
channels can be reallocated dynamically when
running and modifying one channel does not
affect the operation of the other ones. The
channelized data is output as IQ-data that is
sent for analysis with the streaming interfaces.

Data Streaming
Data can be streamed either through the
PCIe-link or the two SFP+ ports. Both RF-
data as well as channelized data can be
streamed through the two different interfaces.
Data sent through the SFP+ ports are sent
as VITA49 UDP packages and can be routed
over long distances either through switches
or by connecting fiber optic cables to the
SFP+ ports. The UDP packaging is performed
directly on the FPGA and each channel can
be sent to a specific address and UDP port,
making it easier for processing nodes to filter
out channels of interest. The 512 channels
could for example be streamed to 512 different
UDP ports. Other streaming protocols such as
Xilinx Aurora are available on request.

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 Using NC-10 USRP
Toolkit
The software is used to configure all the parameters of the hardware such as the RF
frontend settings, channelization settings as well as the streaming location and many
more parameters. The NC-10 software (including FPGA personality) can be used in
three different ways, either locally by calling a DLL, using LabVIEW or as a server,
receiving commands via TCP/IP. All three methods allows you to integrate NC-10 USRP
into your own application.

DLL Server Software

The DLL can be called from any programming Included in the software package is also a server
language capable of loading a DLL, such as software that is ready-to-run. This software runs
C and Python. To help you get started more on a Windows computer connected to the USRP
quickly, ready to run examples can be obtained and communicates with other systems using
in the following languages: TCP/IP. Via an open protocol it is possible to
configure the different parameters of the system.
•C
• C# The server is running on a Windows computer
• LabVIEW but the systems communicating with the
• Matlab server can be running any operating system.
The only requirement is that it is possible to
communicate with TCP/IP commands.
LabVIEW
Examples of how to communicate, what
Apart for configuring the RF frontend and commands to send and in which order are
channelization, with the LabVIEW API it is included in the protocol documentation.
possible to connect NC-10 to other hardware
from National Instruments. Through peer- From the server software it is also possible to
to-peer streaming data can be streamed to stream spectrum-data from the inputs via UDP,
additional FPGA boards to process the RF data which gives a good overview of the present
or the channelized data. signals.

NC-10 is a toolkit and to make the most of it, it should be integrated into
another system. If no such system exist Novator Solutions offer design
services where we make a tailored NC-10 system to meet your requirements.

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Specifications
For USRP 2955 specifications please visit National Instruments homepage www.ni.com

Channelizer Specifications

Number of RF inputs 4

Number of output channels 512

Output channel center frequency resolution <1 Hz

Min: 3k MSps
Output channel sample rate
Max: 50 MSps

Spurious-free dynamic range >100 dBFS

Signal to noise and distortion ratio >90 dB

Mechanical / Environmental
26.67 cm x 4.06 cm x 21.84 cm
Dimensions (L x W x B)
(10.5 in. x 1.6 in. x 8.6 in.)

Weight 1.59 kg (3.50 Ib)

Ambient Temperature 0–55 °C

Maximum Altitude 2 000 m (800 mbar @ 25 °C amb temp)

Electrical

Input Voltage 9-16 VDC

Input Current 7.5 A (max)

Power Consumption 38 - 44 W (depending on application)

Specifications are subject to change without notice.

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 Gold
Gold
Alliance
Alli
Partner
Part
Pa rtne
nerr

About Novator
Solutions
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Novator Solutions are specialized in developing FPGA-based
software defined radio instruments on National Instruments platforms such as PXIe and USRP.
We offer turn-key solutions for channelization, analysis, wideband recording and playback of RF
signals in various scenarios.

Novator Solutions is a National Instruments Gold Alliance Partner, as well as winner of numerous
awards including Alliance Partner of the Year 2015 in northern Europe and Alliance Partner of
the Year 2016 in Europe, Middle East, India and Africa Region (EMEIA).

Our Partners
National Instruments (NI) is an American company based in Austin, Texas, with over 7000
employees worldwide. NI provides an integrated hardware and software platform that helps
engineers and scientists in nearly every industry. NI RF products and solutions span from design
to test. Its high-performance PXI platform and RF instrumentation deliver unprecedented flexibility,
accuracy, and measurement speed.

RFEL is a UK based Technology Company providing high specification signal, image and video
processing solutions to government, defence, security and industrial customers.
   As world leaders in high performance software defined digital receiver designs for Electronic
Warfare systems, RFEL offers rapid and flexible design services based on an extensive library of
multi-award winning, patented FPGA IP-Cores.
NOV-2052-1705

Novator Solutions AB, Stationsvägen 15, SE-182 55 Djursholm, Sweden, info@novatorsolutions.se, Switchboard: +46 8 622 63 50
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