RE: [Discuss-gnuradio] Mblocks

[COLSON Nicolas RD-TECH-GRE]

Thanks for the answer.
Would it be possible to have a look at the status report on what's done and 
what's left to be done for m-blocks. We may consider contributing to the code.
We are particularly interested in:
- the metadata exchange for sending reconfiguration orders
- the interface with gr-blocks for using previously build modules 
- an effective scheduler capable of assuring on the fly reconfiguration 
withouth data interruption

Nicolas Colson
  

-----Message d'origine-----
De : address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden De la part de Greg Troxel
Envoyé : vendredi 23 mars 2007 14:17
À : EVENNOU Frederic RD-TECH-GRE
Cc : address@hidden
Objet : Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Mblocks


"EVENNOU Frederic RD-TECH-GRE" <address@hidden>
writes:

> I  am currently developping a cognitive radio demonstration system 
> under the GNU Radio Platform and I am particularly interested in the 
> mblocks extension proposed by the ADROIT Project. Reading the 
> available documentation and looking to the source code, I realized 
> that the extension is still a work in progress and I would like to 
> know if mblocks are already available as a base class for deriving my 
> own signal processing blocks.

The code that is there is there and you're welcome to start hacking, but you'd 
be the first user - there aren't examples already in the tree, which is a sign 
that this won't (yet) be that easy.

> Inspecting the mblock directory, I've noticed that there are no .i 
> files nor .py so the extension seems unavailable as a Python module. 
> Consequently, I would like to ask you some questions:
>  - Is the current mblock directory exploitable and bug proof?

Certainly not - and probably the rest of the code isn't.  I'm not sure what 
you're really getting at.  Most of GNU Radio seems to run pretty reliably, but 
your using 'proof' makes me wonder about your requirements.

>  - May I use it as a base class for deriving my own signal processing 
> blocks?

You may, but you will surely have to dig in and really understand what's going 
on, and supply some missing pieces.

>  - If I create an interface file for the mblock extension and if I 
> generate all other files (.so, .py, .o ...), will I be able to 
> interface my own module with Python?

Yes, but be warned that this is likely considerable work.

Sorry if I'm sounding like I'm just telling you that you need to read and 
understand all the code that's already present, and that sure you can do all of 
it but it's a lot of work, but that's how I see it.
Contributions of code are always welcome (FSF assignment required as for all 
GNU projects).

> For your information, this project is part of a PhD thesis at France 
> Telecom R&D (French telecommunications company) focusing on 
> integrating cognitive mechanisms into radios.
>  
> Thank you in advance for your answer (and for the work done with this 
> extension, particularly attractive for cognitive applications).

Perhaps Eric can give a status report on what's done and what's left to be done 
for m-blocks.

    Greg Troxel <address@hidden>