Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Beagleboard

[Nikhil Adnani]

Eric A. Cottrell wrote:
> Philip Balister wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:31 PM, Eric Brombaugh <address@hidden> 
> > wrote:
> >  
> > > On Aug 1, 2008, at 1:58 PM, Philip Balister wrote:
> > >    
> > > > I've been talking to a friend (he knows FPGA stuff much better than
> > > > me) about using the expansion port to communicate with an FPGA via a
> > > > SDIO interface. I don't think we can beat the current USRP data rate,
> > > > but we should be able to reduce the latency introduced by the USB
> > > > interface.
> > > >       
> > > Looks like the SDIO ports run up to 50MHz and have 8-bit wide data. 
> > > No idea
> > > how much overhead there is in that, but it might be able to go a bit 
> > > faster
> > > than USB2.0 and as you note would have a lot less latency. Hook up to a
> > > decent FPGA and you could cram a bit of external pre-processing in 
> > > as well.
> > > I picked up one of the Avnet Xilinx Spartan 3A boards for $50 that 
> > > would
> > > probably work well for that.
> > >     
> >
> > We are hoping to create a board with a reasonable FPGA that works with
> > existing USRP daughterboards. This would make a really neat system for
> > small SDR nodes. I'll be sure to keep you updated on out progress.
> >
> > Using an existing dev board for developing the beagle to FPGA
> > interface is a really good idea, thanks for suggesting it!
> >
> > Philip
> >   
> Hello,
>
> Since I have some receive only applications I would like to see a box 
> that took one RX or a RX/TX set of USRP daughterboard(s).


We had also wanted a board that was optimized for wideband signal
reception, processing and analysis.  So we designed and built one with an
RF front-end and ADC to support 85MHz bandwidth, and an FPGA for
agile radio control and additional on-board processing. 

The radio receiver is designed for high P1dB, low noise figure and hence 
large operating amplitude range.  We've currently got two flavors:  
2.4GHz and 1.9GHz.

The intended applications for our system are network-based, distributed 
spectral & signal analysis.  In general it's useful for wideband test & 
measurement applications.  The system runs linux and can go fully 
standalone, but we've also included support for USB2.0 and Ethernet 
interfaces.

We'll have a few beta units available this fall, so if you're interested 
in details, feel free to get in touch.

Nikhil


> The OMAP has some interesting interfaces and I wonder if some of them 
> could be adapted for a more general I/O use.  I am more familiar with 
> the earlier versions of the OMAP.  It will be nice to use the DSP for 
> some signal blocks and use the ARM for more general UI and I/O blocks.
>
>
> 73 Eric
>
>
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