National Instruments has announced an integrated software defined radio solution for rapidly prototyping (USRP) high-performance, multichannel wireless communication systems.
The NI USRP RIO platform is built on the NI LabVIEW RIO architecture and combines a high-performance 2×2 multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) RF transceiver capable of transmitting and receiving signals from 50 MHz to 6 GHz with an open LabVIEW programmable FPGA architecture.
Wireless engineers can use this technology to rapidly prototype real-time wireless communications systems and test them under real-world conditions. They can also prototype more capable wireless algorithms and systems faster and reduce time to results using the only complete platform to take full advantage of a graphical system design approach.
The USRP RIO family delivers high-performance, real-time processing capability with the Xilinx Kintex-7 Series FPGA, low latency with the PCI Express connection to a host computer and small size (1U half wide, 19 in. rack mountable).
USRP RIO is ideal for a wide range of application areas including 5G wireless communications research, active and passive radar development and exploration, communications intelligence,
connected smart devices and more.
NI USRP (Universal Software Radio Peripheral) is already a popular platform for research spanning industry and academia as it empowers researchers to rapidly iterate on designs via programmable software. For example, a recent Lund University announcement highlights a 5G research application focusing on massive MIMO – a technology being considered for 5G communication.