Paper ID #18912

Sample-Based Understanding of Wireless Transceivers and Digital Transmis-

sion Via Software-Defined Radio
Prof. Alexander M. Wyglinski, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Alexander M. Wyglinski is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and an Asso-
ciate Professor of Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), as well as Director of
the Wireless Innovation Laboratory (WI Lab). He received his Ph.D. degree from McGill University in
2005, his M.S. degree from Queens University at Kingston in 2000, and his B.Eng. degree from McGill
University in 1999, all in electrical engineering.
Mr. Travis Fredrick Collins, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Robin Getz, Analog Devices

Robin is currently the Director of Systems Engineering at Analog Devices, and has over twenty years
of diverse industry experience in engineering leadership, product marketing and sales with multi-national
semiconductor firms, spending his last 15 years at Analog Devices Inc. He has a successful track record of
being a highly motivated, strategic thinker, with a passion for technology, and education. Robin currently
manages a multi-national, multi-disciplinary team of engineers who deliver high volume board designs,
overseeing schematic capture, layouts, initial and volume manufacturing, EMI, ESD and vibration testing
for regulatory compliance (CE, FCC), and production test development, and mechanical design for box-
ing/packaging, for both OEM customers and ADI’s education outreach. For the past five years, Robin has
been spending a majority of his time working with the combination of ARM, FPGA, and RF transceivers,
for SDR applications.

American
c Society for Engineering Education, 2017
 Sample-Based Understanding of Wireless Transceivers and
Digital Transmission Via Software Defined Radio

Travis F. Collins† , Di Pu♯ , Robin Getz♯ , Alexander M. Wyglinski†

†
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA
♯
Analog Devices Inc., Wilmington, MA
{traviscollins, alexw}@wpi.edu, {di.pu, robin.getz}@analog.com

Abstract

This paper presents an educational paradigm for the teaching of wireless transceiver design and
digital transmission techniques from a sample-based perspective using compact form-factor
software defined radio (SDR) technology. SDR has been extensively leveraged as an educational
resource for the instruction of both undergraduate- and graduate-level digital communication
courses for approximately a decade. Given decreasing SDR equipment costs coupled with
increasing accessibility to communication system software design tools, SDR technology had
been incorporated in numerous electrical and computer engineering curricula around the world.
Although most of these SDR-based communication courses view the system from a bit-, frame-,
or packet-based perspective and are constrained to laboratory environments, we present an
educational framework where the curriculum is sample-based, i.e., the entire communication
system is viewed from the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and the digital-to-analog converter
(DAC), and the SDR platforms used are sufficiently compact that students can use them
anywhere. The curriculum begins with the fundamentals of wireless communication systems
engineering and the handling of complex-valued samples produced by and sent to the ADC and
DAC, followed by exposure to several practical aspects of wireless transmission and transceiver
implementations such as frequency offset, timing correction, and frame synchronization. Once
these basic practical design considerations have been addressed, the course continues with the
implementation of various modulation (e.g., ASK, PSK, FSK) and coding (e.g., BCH) schemes,
with the objective of successfully transmitting ”hello world” and other messages wirelessly
over-the-air within a classroom environment. Finally, several advanced topics such as multipath
propagation, equalization, and multicarrier modulation are covered. Throughout the course, the
students will be working in groups on a comprehensive course design project that synthesizes
many of the concepts taught in class. Although this educational paradigm can use any SDR
platform capable of handling complex-valued samples (i.e., inphase samples and quadrature
samples), the ADALM-PLUTO SDR platform by Analog Devices was used in this course due to
its capabilities and compact form factor.
Introduction

In 2010, several of the authors of this paper presented an educational paradigm for teaching
digital communications via a hands-on approach using software defined radio (SDR)
technology 1. At the time, SDR technology was only beginning to mature, the number of options
were limited, access to the various features of the SDR platform was limited, and the cost of the
hardware was relatively high (˜$2000USD). Based on this proposed paradigm, the authors
published an undergraduate textbook that presented a curriculum for teaching hands-on digital
communications education using SDR 2 . This textbook commenced with several core theoretical
concepts essential to the understanding of digital communications followed by a series of
hands-on experiements were introduced to the student.
Given SDR
technology at the time (both hardware and software),
the student had limited access to the post-processed
data from the SDR unit, and it was from this
viewpoint that their understanding of real-world digital
communication systems engineering began towards both
the radio frequency front-end (RFFE) of the hardware
as well as the digital processing side of the system
where the digital communications and digital signal
processing algorithms are executed. Other models for
teaching digital communications via SDR technology
experienced similar challenges and limitations with
respect to the amount of access provided to the student
with respect to the SDR hardware and software 3 .
Over the past seven years, there have been
significant advances in SDR hardware and software
technologies 4. SDR support in software packages
such as MATLAB 5 , Simulink 6 , and GNU Radio 7 have
evolved to a point where students can truly interact with
real-world wireless signals over-the-air in real-time. At
the same time, SDR hardware can now support both the Figure 1: Photograph of ADALM
transmission and reception of sophisticated waveforms PLUTO software defined radio unit
such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing by Analog Devices. The PLUTO
(OFDM) and Mulitple Input Multiple Output (MIMO). SDR was extensively used during the
In addition to these new capabilities, the cost of SDR undergraduate digital communications
hardware continues to decrease and is becoming more course on which this paper is based.
accessible to students, including the recent introduction
of the ADALM-PLUTO SDR platform 8 by Analog
Devices, which employs the AD9363 9 and costs approximately $100USD (see Figure 1). With
these latest advances, SDR hardware and software are accessible to the larger student population
and can be used not only for digital communications education but also employed in other
educational and design activities, especially those with interdisciplinary aspects such as
 r(t)
q(t) q[n] DCC s[n]
RFFE A/D
(N)

q(t) q[n] s[n]

t n n

Figure 2: Illustration of the software defined radio receiver and its operation in converting an in-
tercepted analog passband signal r(t) to a digital baseband signal s[n]. The analog-to-digital con-
verter (A/D) identified in the illustration is emphasized at the beginning of the course to highlight
the importance of the translation between the analog and digital domains.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Internet-of-Things (IoT).

In this paper, we present an educational paradigm for the teaching digital communication systems
engineering using SDR from the perspective of the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and the
digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Based on our previously published approach 1 and the lessons
learned over the past six years of instructing undergraduate and graduate students at Worcester
Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the proposed paradigm views the sample as the fundamental unit of
information within the SDR system rather than the bit, data packet, or data frame. Referring to the
generic illustration of a digital communications receiver in Figure 2, the paradigm starts at the
ADC and DAC, where the students related the raw digital baseband signal q[n] with the analog
baseband signal q(t). After a brief explanation of how the radio frequency front-end (RFFE)
converts an intercepted analog passband signal r(t) to q(t), the course progressively works it way
through the system towards the digital communications and digital signal processing algorithms
on the computing processor forming part of the SDR system (the downsampled digital signal s[n]
is ultimately what is processed by these algorithms). At the conclusion of the course, this
hands-on paradigm provides the student with a holistic understanding of the communication
system. At the same time, the student is exposed to many real-world issues and non-idealities at
various stages of the system that would othewise never come up in a conventional digital
communications course. Throughout the entire experience, the students are provided their own
ADALM-PLUTO SDR platforms, enabling them to experiment and explore the wireless domain
from anywhere around the world.
 Table 1: Specification of the AD9363 RF Agile Transceiver 9.
Radio frequency 2x2 transceiver
Integrated 12-bit DACs and ADCs
325 MHz to 3.8 GHz bandwidth
Supports time division duplex and frequency division duplex
Tunable channel bandwidth of up to 20 MHz
6 differential or 12 single-ended inputs
Noise figure of 3 dB
Transmitter noise of ≤−157 dBm/Hz noise floor
Transmitter monitor of 66 dB dynamic range with 1 dB accuracy

Methods

The theoretical groundwork for this hands-on course is based on the discrete-time approaches for
digital communication systems education similar to those presented in several theoretical and
simulation-based textbooks 10,11 . The undergraduate course that is currently employing this
proposed hands-on digital communications educational paradigm at WPI, ECE4305 Software
Defined Radio Systems and Analysis, leverages a flipped-classroom approach for instructing
students in both SDR and digital communications. All lectures for this course are available from
the ECE4305 YouTube channel 12 , while the lecture periods are used to reinforce the theoretical
concepts covered in class, discuss student experiences with the hands-on aspects of the course,
and relate the corresponding theoretical and experiemental elements of the course.
Using the PLUTO SDR platform 8 , which is based on the AD9363 9 (see Table 1 for
specifications), the structure of the hands-on learning portion of the ECE4305 course using the
proposed paradigm is as follows:
Laboratory 0 – SDR, FFT, SNR, and Signal Manipulation: The objective of this laboratory is
to introduce the operations of SDR reception and transmission to the students, demonstrate some
simple signal manipulation, and provide a discussion on signal power. Specifically, this laboratory
experiment outlines radio connectivity in MATLAB and provides the student with an opportunity
to design a simple test-bench where experiments can be repeated. The concepts of sample rate,
decimation/interpolation, direct conversion, and complex baseband data are discussed, and signal
scopes and other debugging tools are introduced. Connections to theoretical topics around power
and power spectral densities are discussed. Note that this laboratory is used to bring up the entire
class to the same starting point for the course with respect to foundational knowledge.
Consequently, this laboratory does not count for credit, but it is a mandatory element of the
course.
Laboratory 1 – Coarse and Fine Frequency Correction: The first of three for-credit
experiments, the objective of this laboratory is to provide the student with an understanding of the
various sources of frequency offset error that may potentially occur within a communication link,
how it can be modeled, and finally how it can be corrected. An illustration of frequency offset
error is shown in Figure 3. From this experiment, the students are expected to provide
performance results of their designs, and produce a comparative study of simulations and SDR
results. The students first model both large and small carrier mismatches between transmitting
and receiving nodes. Then, the students implement algorithmic estimations and corrections for
these offsets, as well as provide an analysis of the implementation performance with relative
limits on algorithmic corrections. Once completed, the students are exposed to radio hardware
and are tasked with conducting a comparative study with simulations. This hands-on experience
builds upon the handware and software foundation established in Laboratory 0 by exposing the
students to their first real-world challenge. By being able to identify, understand, and correct for
frequency offsets, the students are now in a position to address the other real-world impairments
that could potentially prevent them from transmitting and receiving wireless information.

Figure 3: Center frequency offset experimental result. This center frequency offset is due to imper-
fections in the radio frequency front end at both the transmitter and receiver. Although relatively
simple to identify, this is the first lesson in the course highlighting the difference between theory
and practice.

Laboratory 2 – Timing Estimation and Matched Filtering: With frequency offset addressed in
Laboratory 1, the next real-world challenge is timing error occurring from multiple sources within
a communication link. In particular, the students learn in this laboratory how these timing error
sources can be modeled and how they can be corrected. Furthermore, this laboratory presents a
brief overview and implementation of transmit filtering. Given that frequency offset issues have
been handled at this stage in the course, the students will be expected to provide some
performance results with respect to their designs and produce a comparative study between
computer simulations and SDR results. The students will explore models that describes the
sample timing error and the carrier offset error between transmitting and receiving radios, as well
as implement timing correction approaches and provide an analysis of the implementation
performance with relative limits on the algorithmic correction. At the end of this laboratory, the
students should have mastered solutions for correcting frequency offset and timing errors, as well
as important tools such as eye diagrams (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Example of an eye diagram possessing an initially unknown offset error. The eye diagram
has been upsampled by twenty times so we can examine the transitions more closely and find the
optimal sampling instant.

Laboratory 3 – Frame Synchronization, Message Decoding, and Source Coding: The final
step in this hands-on educational paradigm for learning how to implement an end-to-end digital
communication system is to determine the locations of the frames of data contained within an
intercepted signal. Knowing how to correct for frequency offset and timing errors, the students
will be tasked in this laboratory with generating framed data from a generic source, locating
frames in a stream of demodulated data, and converting the data into the original source
formatting. Additionally, the students will introduce source coding into their transmissions. In the
first part of the laboratory experiment, the students will implement a packetized data stream and
model frame offset in a source data stream. Then, the students will implement estimation
techniques that will compensate for these offsets and handle multiple discontinuous frames.
Previous synchronization errors will also be introduced along with their implemented corrections
from the previous laboratory experiments to provide the students with a larger picture of how
these different components are all intercopnnected with each other. Finally, channel coding will
be included and will be evaluated with and without these synchronization errors. An illustration
of how the students are expected to use tools such as correlation and sequences such as Barker
Sequences to identify the starting location of frames is shown in Figure 5. Students will leverage
the concept of correlation and apply it to a real-world signal intercepted by their SDR devices in
order to extract the frame locations in the samples.
 Seq Corr R(m)

Data Seq Data Seq Data Seq Data

R(m)

Figure 5: Leveraging a known sequence that is periodically inserted in a transmission, a receiver

can be designed to exploit correlation characteristics in order to perform frame synchronization.
This is the final fundamental lesson taught in the course prior to the students being expected to
encode and decode binary data across the communication system end-to-end.

Results

The 2017 offering of ECE4305 consisted of eight WPI ECE undergraduate students, which was
the first class to employ the proposed paradigm with the PLUTO SDR platforms. These students
were paired up into four teams of two students each, and each team was responsible for working
through each of the aforementioned laboratory experiments. Furthermore, given the small size of
the class, all eight students worked on a single term-long comprehensive open-design project that
synthesize all course concepts and the laboratory experiments in order to produce a functional
prototype distributed spectrum sensing network that uploads spectrum measurements to the cloud.
The open-ended course project leveraged the outcomes of the laboratory experiments, and utilized
multiple coordinated PLUTO SDR units with each of them attached to a host computer installed
with MATLAB. Note that several small quizzes were also conducted during the term in order to
ensure that the students also mastered the theoretical concepts covered during the course.
Several results from the end-of-term student survey for the 2017 offering of ECE4305 are
presented in Table 2. Based on these survey results, it is clear that the students found the
experience in ECE4305 relatively rewarding. Although the students indicated that they had to
spend approximately 16-20 hours per week on the SDR experimentation component of the course
outside of regular lecture periods and supervised laboratory sessions, it is evident that the students
found this SDR experimentation experience valuable based on the scores.
Although the students were able to design and implement sophisticated wireless communication
networks based on SDR technology, there was some level of frustration with understanding the
core fundamentals about how SDR technology should be setup and initialized. Although students
have been exposed to wireless communications and networking before with previous course
work, they did not have a solid understanding of how these concepts are connected to the device
physics of the SDR platform itself, especially the radio frequency front end. For example,
students were unaware that the transmit and receive paths of the SDR platforms should be
assigned different center frequencies, thinking that when one path is not in use it would be
 Table 2: Results of end-of-term student survey for 2017 offering of ECE4305.
Survey Question Responses
“The educational value of the assigned work was . . . ” 4.25/5
(Very poor = 1, Excellent = 5)
“Relative to other college courses I have taken, the amount I learned 4.5/5
from the course was . . . ”
(Much less = 1, Much more = 5)
“Relative to other college courses I have taken, the intellectual challenge 4.75/5
presented by the course was . . . ”
(Much less = 1, Much more = 5)
“On average, what were the total hours spent in each 7-day week outside of 16-20 hours/week
formally scheduled class time in work related to the course?”
“Relative to other lab experiences, the intellectual challenge presented 4.75/5
by the lab assignments was . . . ”
(Much less = 1, Much more = 5)

effectively “off”, which is not the case. Nevertheless, once the students eventually learned how
SDR technology actually works, their usage of these platforms to design wireless communication
systems and networks proceeded smoothly. An introduction to these SDR technology
fundamentals will be further improved in subsequent offerings of ECE4305.
An attractive advantage of the using the PLUTO SDR in conjunction with MATLAB is that the
students do not need to be confined to a laboratory setting. The compact design of the PLUTO
SDR and the prevalence of MATLAB across the ECE student population makes this setup
portable, allowing the students to work on wireless communication networks prototyping and
design anywhere, from dorm rooms to coffee shops. This is a significant difference from SDR
solutions from five years ago.

Discussion & Future Work

Student feedback from the students of the 2017 offering of ECE4305 at WPI was generally
positive. It has been observed that the students are experiencing relatively less difficulty with
respect to real-world issues such as frequency offset and timing errors when compared to previous
offerings of the ECE4305 course employing the prior educational paradigm 1 . Furthermore, the
amount of data available from the hardware observable from the different stages of the PLUTO
SDR device, as well as the capabilities of the MATLAB and Simulink software pacakages, have
been invaluable in providing the students will useful insight on the operation of the platform.
Finally, although there are several non-ideal transmission characteristics associated with the SDR
setup, this in itself is a very useful learning moment for the students since it highlights how the
real-world can vary from the theory taught in a classroom.
References

[1] Alexander M Wyglinski, Di Pu, and Daniel J Cullen. Digital communication systems education via
software-defined radio experimentation. In Proc. ASEE Annual Conf, 2011.
[2] Di Pu and Alexander M Wyglinski. Digital communication systems engineering with software-defined radio.
Artech House, 2013.
[3] S. G. Bilen, A. M. Wyglinski, C. R. Anderson, T. Cooklev, C. Dietrich, B. Farhang-Boroujeny, J. V. Urbina,
S. H. Edwards, and J. H. Reed. Software-defined radio: a new paradigm for integrated curriculum delivery.
IEEE Communications Magazine, 52(5):184–193, May 2014.
[4] A. M. Wyglinski, D. P. Orofino, M. N. Ettus, and T. W. Rondeau. Revolutionizing software defined radio: case
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[5] MATLAB. https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html. Accessed: 2017-02-13.
[6] Simulink - simulation and model-based design.
https://www.mathworks.com/products/simulink.html. Accessed: 2017-02-13.
[7] GNU radio. http://gnuradio.org/. Accessed: 2017-02-13.
[8] ADALM-PLUTO – analog devices.
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Accessed: 2017-02-13.
[9] AD9363 datasheet and product info.
http://www.analog.com/en/products/rf-microwave/integrated-transceivers
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2017-02-13.
[10] Michael Rice. Digital communications: a discrete-time approach. Pearson Education, 2009.
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[12] ECE4305 software defined radio systems and analysis – playlist.
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