Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] embedding

[Tristan Martin]

Hi George,

In addition to Marcus' response. Engineers who works in a context where an 
embedded "production design" is the end goal will want to leverage the SoC's 
FPGA to its full potential. To do that they will target the ARM processors 
(with an Embedded OS) using GNU Radio, and target the FPGA with Matlab/Simulink 
either using the MathWork's HDL coder or Xilinx System Generator to avoid 
tedious HDL coding.

If you follow the link bellow, you will find an OFDM physical layer (802.11a) 
implemented in a Zynq's FPGA using Simulink and Xilinx System Generator 
combiened (graphical tools to program FPGAs). Upper layer data is 
sinked/sourced from GNU Radio. The GNU Radio application runs on a laptop in 
this example but it'll run just the same on the Zynq's ARMs
  
http://nutaq.com/en/blog/video-ofdm-zeptosdr-and-gnu-radio

Cheers,

~Tristan

-----Message d'origine-----
De : address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden De la part de Marcus Müller
Envoyé : 4 avril 2014 05:47
À : address@hidden
Objet : Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] embedding

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Hi George,

I think you're talking about Matlab, aren't you?
Matlab has a resource hungry interpreter for its scripting language.
Embedding that will be possible.
Matlab *can* (in many cases) generate C/C++ code, but that will also only work 
with a fully-fledged OS underneath; also, the Matlab-supplied compiler links 
against a matlab supplied standard runtime, which effectively eliminates 
portability.

Generally, comparing Matlab to GNU Radio is a lot like comparing apples and 
pears -- you can do signal processing with both, but the idea behind is quite 
different.

GNU Radio is a C++/python-based framework. As such, it needs a runtime to work 
on; you won't get far without an OS (memory allocation/management, threading 
etc are all in especially heavily used) You can actually generate GNU Radio 
applications without using python, thus reducing the need for dynamicly loaded 
libraries heavily.

So to be realistic: Embedded OS for GNU Radio boils down to using Linux, for 
example in the shape of OpenEmbedded/Yocto. That has been proven numerous times 
to work quite well.

I haven't actually tried, but in theory you should be able to statically link 
with GNU Radio. I honestly don't know if you win much by that -- I imagine a 
embedded platform that's powerful enough to do useful RF signal processing will 
most probably not be limited by a few MBs of superfluous libraries lying 
around; but maybe I'm wrong about that.

If you want to see an embedded GNU Radio based Signal Processing hardware in 
action, there are several people that use raspberry Pi's together with RTL-SDR 
dongles, or take a look at the Ettus Embedded USRP series -- these are ARM 
platforms running an Angstrom Linux distribution.

So to answer to your considerations:
The GNU Radio approach is usually to develop your application on your 
workstation, and run it on an embedded device that's powerful enough.
It's been proven to work well :)

Greetings
Marcus

On 04.04.2014 10:20, George Refseth wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Anyone with input as to the feasibility of maintaining either 
> gnu-radio or math-lab design and have something embeddable without 
> pulling the whole environment into the target? Generating c or c++ to 
> be compiled for the target with or without a real-time os.
> 
> What I foresee as a problem is the transfer of design from modelling 
> to run-time, and that becomes a one-way road and only done once so 
> that one looses the value of the model be it gnu-radio or math-lab 
> based.
> 
> best regards, George Refseth
> 
> _______________________________________________ Discuss-gnuradio 
> mailing list address@hidden 
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio
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