GRCon20 - GNU Radio in a Direct-RF World

Presented by Travis Collins at GNU Radio Conference 2020 https://gnuradio.org/grcon20 Radio architecture has gone through several evolutions since the days of Armstrong and the first heterodyne devices. Even though superheterodyne still may be the performance king for targeted applications, the last two decades have seen a serious shift toward Zero-IF solutions with highly integrated devices, due to the cost and performance gains. We are at the point of a third architecture for the masses, typically referred to as Direct-RF, with super high-speed data converters. In this presentation, the landscape of these new devices, their applications, and the complexities of handling such data rates will be discussed. Particularly, an overview of different tools used in this space will be provided and how they can fit into different workflows for using such high-speed devices with GNU Radio. A focus on the tradeoffs when prototyping and designing with these systems will be explored, and examples will be given about leveraging different aspects of the hardware solutions and software solutions as well.