Nuand bladeRF 2.0 micro

The bladeRF 2.0 micro is the second generation of highly capable SDRs produced by Nuand, LLC. It will be the main SDR used for the CDC design project.

Content

1. Overview
2. Command Line Interface
3. SoapySDR Block
   • Block Configuration
   • Message Port Interface
   • Stream Tag Interface
4. libbladeRF
5. Performance

Overview

The key component on the bladeRF 2.0 board is an Analog Devices AD9361 wideband transceiver, an RFIC which is also found in many other common SDRs (Ettus USRP B series and ADALM PlutoSDRs).

The following is a list of useful references for understanding and using the bladeRF. The bladeRF wiki is the best place to start.

• bladeRF 2.0 micro
• bladeRF wiki
• libbladeRF documentation
• bladeRF source code
• bladeRF 2.0 Schematic

To use the bladeRF within our Ubuntu environment, it first must be connected to the VM by selecting: Devices > USB > Nuand bladeRF 2.0

In CDC we will use the xA9 version of the board, where board versions vary only in the size of the onboard FPGA.

Important Note: To avoid violating governmental regulations and damaging the hardware, please acknowledge and adhere to the following guidelines:

• Never transmit or receive on any band on which you are not licensed to operate
• Always terminate TX and RX ports with a 50 Ohm load (either an antenna or SMA terminator)
• Never connect a TX port directly to an RX port without proper attenuation at least 30 dB)

Command Line Interface

The bladeRF-cli command line utility can be used to verify device connectivity as well as query and set device parameters. For complete information, see the following references.

• Verifying Basic Device Operation
• bladeRF CLI Tips and Tricks

For our purposes, we will only use bladeRF-cli to verify connectivity and not to set device parameters. To ensure the bladeRF is correctly attached, the --probe or -p command can be used.

$ bladeRF-cli -p # probe for connected bladeRF devices

  Description:    Nuand bladeRF 2.0
  Backend:        libusb
  Serial:         991431a963384f8289baea2ba586720d
  USB Bus:        2
  USB Address:    2

The command line tool also has an interactive mode, which can be a more convenient way of querying and configuring the board.

$ bladeRF-cli -i # enter interactive mode

Within interactive mode you can check the bladeRF driver, device firmware, and FPGA versions currently loaded.

bladeRF> version

  bladeRF-cli version:       1.8.0-0.2019.07.rbuild1
  libbladeRF version:        2.2.1-0.2019.07-4build1

  Firmware version:          2.3.2
  FPGA version:              0.11.0 (configured by USB)

You can also read expanded device information.

bladeRF> info

  Board:                    Nuand bladeRF 2.0 (bladerf2)
  Serial #:                 991431a963384f8289baea2ba586720d
  VCTCXO DAC calibration:   0x1d11
  FPGA size:                301 KLE
  FPGA loaded:              yes
  Flash size:               128 Mbit
  USB bus:                  2
  USB address:              2
  USB speed:                SuperSpeed
  Backend:                  libusb
  Instance:                 0

See bladeRF --help for a full list of possible commands.

SoapySDR Block

TODO

libbladeRF

The bladeRF device can be controlled directly from Python and C/C++ programs using the libbladeRF library.

• libbladeRF documentation

Performance

This section will describe procedures for characterizing performance of the bladeRF boards and report typical results.

Metrics:

• USB throughput
• Noise figure/floor
• Frequency Stability
• DC offset
• IQ imbalance