Sponsored By
Efika 5200B Project
Port OSSIE Open source software communication architecturein category Applications & Software
proposed by balister on 10th October 2006 (accepted on 17th October 2006)
Project Summary
OSSIE is an open source implementation of the Software Communication Architecture (SCA). The SCA is a framework for developing Software Defined Radios (SDR). OSSIE has already run on the TI OMAP processor. This project builds on the already approved projects that add support for the EFIKA to OpenEmbedded (OE). Currently, I am adding support for OSSIE to OE, for this project I will verify it works on the EFIKA and port some of the OSSIE project waveforms to the EFIKA. The presence of the FPU on the EFIKA will make the EFIKA a useful low power SDR platform.More information on OSSIE is at http://ossie.mprg.org
Project Blog Entries
I succesfully demonstrated a distributed SDR at the wireless@VT symposium in June. The Efika performed pulse shaping and the interface to the USRP. Currently, my primary focus is writing my MS Thesis.
In my "spare" time, I am working on porting the MANIAC Challenge software to the Efika. (http://www.maniacchallenge.org/index.html) Currently, I m having an issue with C++ linking and libtool-1.5.24 within OpenEmebdded. When we resolve this, I should be able to create a MANIAC test node with the Efika and a mini-PCI wireless card.
The top digram shows how the hardware is connected. The lower diagram shows the distribution of the functional blocks across the two processors, and the communication paths between these block.
And for some reason you have to click on the funny image to see the real image ....
I know, the title is silly :)
One of the features of the Software Communication Architecture is that it uses CORBA for intercomponent communcation. This means the radio's software does not need to be located on one processing unit. For the wireless@VT symposium (http://wireless.vt.edu) I have built a small system from an Efika and an OMAP starter kit that sends short data packets using QPSK. The radio portion is the GNU Radio USRP. The USRP requires a high speed USB interface, so I had to add a USB2.o controller to the EFIKA.
Currently, the radio just started working. I'll be showing it off at the symposium later this week. I'll take a better picture that clearly shows the radio and upload a block diagram later this week.
Finally, here is a picture of the radio.
If you have questions about my work, my contact info is at:
http://ossie.mprg.org/PhilipBalister
I'll add some instructions for building a SDR with an EFIKA board to our website soon.
When I get a chance, I will try and add suuport for the MANIAC challenge software to Open Embedded;
http://www.maniacchallenge.org/
I have reviewd the software, if I can get a working USB wireless LAN NIC running, the rest of the software should build on the EFIKA.
I have demonstrated a transmitter based on OSSIE that sends data packets using BPSK and QPSK. I can receive the packets on our Tektonix Real time signal analyzer. The constellations look very good.
My EFIKA uses the Angstrom distribution built from Open Embedded. The code to replicate this work has been committed to the Open Embedded Meta Data.