GNU Radio Project Description

GNU Radio is a free software toolkit for learning about, exploring, building and deploying software radios.

Goals

This project builds upon the success of the current GNU Radio project. The goals are to:

• Revise the infrastructure so that symmetric multi-processor machines (SMP) are transparently utilized effectively.
• Add support for a scripting interface so mortals can build software radios.
• Revise infrastructure to support hierarchical signal processing modules that support both a streaming data flow model as well as event-based control and status.
• Support the utilization of FPGA's for a portion of the signal processing path. Initial support will be for digital up converters and digital down converters in the FPGA. The ideal solution includes:
  • A way to define primitive modules that are implemented in an FPGA. This includes the high level interface seen by the rest of the system, as well as the netlist required for the function.
  • A way to automatically "Linkage Edit" blocks together into a complete FPGA configuration. This implicitly requires that the placement and routing between modules happen late in the game.
  • Some kind of standard interface for tweaking FPGA parameters on the fly (e.g., tuning frequency, filter taps, etc.)
• Ensure that appropriate infrastructure is in place for amateur radio users.
• Support the development and use of GNU Radio as the preferred software for Gerald Youngblood's SDR-1000 Transceiver. This will give amateur radio operators an off-the-shelf hardware path to GNU Radio.
• Enable the modification of flow graphs on the fly. Currently the flow graph topology is fixed at instantiation time.
• Improve workability of GUI's. This will most likely be done by leveraging existing GUI libs through the scripting interface.
• Demonstrate HDTV demodulation in real time in 2003 using a big SMP machine.
• Continue to expand the number of developers and users.

Tracking Progress

You can track the progress towards these goals by checking the monthly status reports. If you prefer you progress information on a more detailed level, please see the ChangeLog.

Getting the Software

The GNU Radio software is available by following the links on the GNU Radio home page at http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio. Tarball distributions are periodically made, and the latest development version is always available via CVS.

Bid Details

The bid is for a 1 year time period and will be paid out monthly. Approved expenses should be added to your bid.