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Universal software radio peripheral 2 available
We are pleased to announce that the USRP2 is now for sale! Credit card orders can be placed through our web site at: http://ettus.com If you require a quote, they are available from that page as well. If you require anything else in your quote, please contact us at sales at ettus.com Please note that we have recently changed our web design, web host, and credit card processing. If you have any trouble with the website or ordering process, please let us know. We would like to thank everyone who participated in the USRP2 Beta program, as well as everyone who waited patiently through the longer-than-expected Beta testing period. For more information on the USRP2, please see: http://ettus.com/downloads/ettus_ds_usrp2_v2.pdf http://gnuradio.org/trac/wiki/USRP2 Thank you, Matt Ettus President, Ettus Research LLC (Log in to post comments)
Universal software radio peripheral 2 available Posted May 29, 2009 17:22 UTC (Fri) by shapr (guest, #9077) [Link]
I really want one of these. Not sure what I would do with it, but I really want one!
Universal software radio peripheral 2 available Posted May 31, 2009 0:54 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] ditto.
Universal software radio peripheral 2 available Posted May 31, 2009 10:43 UTC (Sun) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
Create (or continue working on existing project) a Free GPS receiver.
GPS Posted Jun 1, 2009 10:13 UTC (Mon) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
That seems like an odd choice, can you explain why you think it's worth doing?
Unlike a lot of radio protocols, GPS is really only good for one thing: Figuring out where you are on the surface of a planet which has GPS satellites orbiting it. As a side effect you get somewhat accurate consensus global time for free. But, very cheap devices which provide this functionality exist today either as components (for use in some hair-brained hobbyist scheme) or as finished devices. They're reliable, and pretty cheap, and they mostly speak a well-documented serial protocol, so almost ideal already. What would a Free-as-in-speech receiver do for us?
GPS Posted Jun 1, 2009 12:35 UTC (Mon) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
You would be doing most of the data analysis in software, so you would also be able to speak Galileo with the same hardware, for instance. Seems useful to me, but might also be possible with the new devices from TI. But those would probably have to be reverse engineered.
Then again, the real point of a GPS receiver is the DSP software, so the hardware side is pretty boring.
GPS Posted Jun 1, 2009 13:49 UTC (Mon) by kalahann (subscriber, #33885) [Link]
"What would a Free-as-in-speech receiver do for us?"
it could bring unlimited positioning precision, that is not available with off-the-shelf devices because IIRC, it is reserved for military use (or is my information outdated?)
GPS Posted Jun 1, 2009 14:28 UTC (Mon) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]
Very outdated information, and misleading. There is nothing limiting in the civilian receivers, the accuracy limitation is a "feature" of the system itself. During the first Gulf War the US government realized that they could use civilian GPS receivers and save a boatload of money if they disabled the encryption keys that prevented non-military receivers from having full accuracy. And there is no such thing as "unlimited" precision. The accuracy of a single GPS receiver (using multiple satellites) is on the order of 10 meters in the horizontal plane. Maybe that's "unlimited" when you think about how big the earth is, but it is not good enough to find a needle in a haystack.
GPS Posted Jun 1, 2009 16:08 UTC (Mon) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Of course a modern GPS receiver also implements SBAS, compensating for inaccuracies caused by atmospheric conditions (which supposedly represent about half the expected error in GPS). The European SBAS named EGNOS was promised to deliver locations accurate to 7 metres, and in practice it usually seems to be within 1-2m.
These systems are intended for aircraft but they work just fine on the ground if you live somewhere with coverage and can see the sky well enough, I have tracks from rural footpaths taken weeks apart where you have to zoom in to see the error, because it's consistently less than 1m difference between the old and new track. 10 years ago there'd have been a big offset and, if the track was long enough, a noticeable wobble from SA.
GPS Posted Jun 1, 2009 17:36 UTC (Mon) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]
There's also the "munitions" restriction that civilian GPS
receivers must be hobbled by the manufacturer to only work at speeds less than 1000 nautical miles/hour and at altitudes below 18km.
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2004/aprqtr/22cfr121.16...
GPS Posted Jun 4, 2009 9:34 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (subscriber, #1804) [Link] IIRC PSAS decompiled the firmware of their commercial GPS to work around this, all that was required was NOPing the "is speed > 1000nm/h" check. I heard this at one of Keith Packard's "The Fastest Debian Machine in the World" talks, at Debian Miniconf 4 or 5, which were part of linux.conf.au 2005 and 2006.
Universal software radio peripheral 2 available Posted Jun 3, 2009 15:54 UTC (Wed) by shapr (guest, #9077) [Link]
I'd be more interested in implementing wifi, bluetooth, and 3G stacks on the USRP2. My short experience working for a Nokia subcontractor gave me the impression that 3G security is just a tiny bit of obscurity.
FPGA changes require $3000 Xilinx software, much less excited. Posted Jun 3, 2009 16:58 UTC (Wed) by shapr (guest, #9077) [Link]
I was seriously considering buying the USRP2 because I want to play with SDR, and I want to learn how to write useful and interesting code for FPGAs.
I can swing the ~$2000 that a USRP2 and daughterboards would cost me, but I can't swing that and $3000 or $4600 for the Xilinx tools that will let me write new FPGA designs.
This sort of price puts the USRP2 out of my price constraints.
FPGA changes require $3000 Xilinx software, much less excited. Posted Jun 10, 2009 2:01 UTC (Wed) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link]
Is it not possible to use the free Xilinx tools, the web-based tools, or the "low-cost" tools?
FPGA changes require $3000 Xilinx software, much less excited. Posted Jun 10, 2009 17:10 UTC (Wed) by shapr (guest, #9077) [Link]
The free tools are right out for this particular FPGA, and the 'low-cost' tools are $3000 USD. The high cost tools are $4500 USD.
I'm not a student/academic/etc, so I didn't check those prices.
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