A low-cost, open source USB 3.0 Software Defined Radio platform with many examples and tutorials to help you experiment with RF.
If you missed the Kickstarter and are wondering about general availability, check out http://nuand.com/order.php
It's the last day for our project. Thank you everyone for the amazing support!
UPDATE: Source code is now available on Github ( https://github.com/Nuand/bladeRF )
UPDATE: Production bladeRF units will ship with removable-cap RF shields.
What is a Software Defined Radio?
As wireless technologies become ubiquitous, Software Defined Radios (SDR) are gaining popularity. Unlike most radios transceivers found in phones, WiFi devices, remote controls, etc. that can only communicate using specific wireless modulation schemes, Software Defined Radios are completely software based, which allows them to communicate with devices across the RF spectrum. Besides interacting with existing wireless devices, SDRs allow for the development of new wireless systems and protocols using intuitive software tools and APIs.
An open education
bladeRF is a platform designed to enable a community of hobbyists, and professionals to explore and experiment with the multidisciplinary facets of RF communication. By providing source code, thorough documentation, easy to grasp tutorials, and a place for open discussion, modern radio systems will be demystified by covering everything from the RF, analog, and digital hardware design to the firmware running on the ARM MCU and FPGA to Linux kernel device drivers.
A Software Defined Radio platform should not end at the hardware, which is why there is such a strong emphasis on documentation and tutorials. Starting with basic radio architecture and spanning into modulation techniques, high throughput USB Linux kernel driver design, basic telecommunication coding schemes, and MIMO, the platform aims to be the perfect tool for learning modern software radio design.
Powerful and portable
The bladeRF is a fully bus powered device that does not need to be plugged into an outlet for normal operation. For users who wish to do host processing, USB 3.0 SuperSpeed is the ideal high throughput, low latency interface that brings the PC closer to the antenna than ever before. For those looking for a standalone solution, the bladeRF accepts a 5V DC input and operates autonomously using the FPGA for signal processing.
Professional quality, amateur price
Professionally designed and verified, bladeRF prototypes were inspected through X-Ray superimposed layouts, and put through rigorous physical and electrical stress tests to ensure high quality mass production builds. Ultimately, this makes the bladeRF a high quality, low-cost Software Defined Radio capable of capturing 40MHz 12-bit full duplex quadrature samples in realtime.
A full solution in a single package
Out of the box the bladeRF can tune from 300MHz to 3.8GHz without the need for extra boards. The current open source drivers provide support for GNURadio among other things, allowing the bladeRF to be placed into immediate use. This gives the bladeRF the flexibility to act as a custom RF modem, a GSM and LTE picocell, a GPS receiver, an ATSC transmitter or a combination Bluetooth/WiFi client without the need for any expansion cards.
Total control
The bladeRF was designed from the beginning to be highly integrated and fully reprogrammable. This means more than just providing source code to modify the host software. The USB 3.0 (Cypress FX3) microcontroller firmware is available to modify, as is the Altera Cyclone IV FPGA VHDL, bringing developers as close to the RF transceiver as possible.
All the pieces were written, designed, and documented to not only teach but encourage modification at each level from the host software all the way down to the FPGA logic. The bladeRF allows for the USB 3.0 microcontroller and FPGA to be reprogrammed through JTAG or directly via USB. With freely available tools and development suites provided by the hardware vendors, the bladeRF's FPGA and USB 3.0 microcontroller firmware can be easily modified.
More than just RF
The functionality and openness of the bladeRF encourages people to use the platform as more than just an RF transceiver. The FPGA can act as an accelerator of any type from turbo decoding to video transcoding. The bladeRF can be easily adapted for use in custom embedded projects due to its low power requirements and the flexibility offered by the FPGA, FX3, and expansion port. For inquisitive developers, the platform can be used as a USB 3.0 and FPGA development kit.
Technical specifications:
Functional prototypes
We have a set of fully functional prototypes that we have been using to verify the design and finish the driver development.
The bladeRF was very verified early on to work well with embedded devices such as a Raspberry Pi. The highly efficient power architecture makes the bladeRF the perfect embedded SDR.
The prototypes have been verified electrically and physically to ensure that the design is indeed ready for mass production. We have gone as far as X-Raying the finest pitch components to inspect the quality of the PCBs and of the assembly.
The USB 3.0 transceiver's 0.8mm package could have caused manufacturability issues, however by inspecting it with the X-Ray machine the design was proved to be correct. It is this attention to detail that will ensure high quality bladeRFs are shipped to backers.
Who should purchase a bladeRF?
The bladeRF is meant for new as well as experienced wireless developers. With drivers for many platforms and GNURadio support, the bladeRF is an ideal drop-in replacement for experienced developers looking for a highly capable and cost effective SDR.
The bladeRF is also meant for hobbyists and enthusiasts looking to learn about modern radios. By providing examples and tutorials along with open source support and many of the design files, the bladeRF provides an unparalleled guide to wireless development, especially for newcomers.
Who we are...
We are a group of software, hardware, and RF engineers dedicated to making understanding and experimenting with RF more accessible to hobbyists and enthusiasts by creating low-cost professional grade equipment. Drawing from years of industry experience, and many months of work we've put together the bladeRF platform. Most importantly, we are active developers with a strong desire to see our platform bring RF experimentation to a whole new level.
Make sure to check out our blog at http://nuand.com/blog/ or visit us on IRC in #bladeRF on Freenode.
Risks and challenges
Due to the nature of test equipment, we have sought legal advice to ensure that we are in compliance with American and international regulatory bodies.
As with any other hardware project, our delivery dates can be adversely affected by component inventory. To avoid such surprises during a mass production run, only parts with healthy stock estimates were selected during the design phase of the bladeRF. Additionally, we have approached and remained in contact with many component distributors about their inventory.
A successful mass production run has been carefully planned since the very beginning of the project. We selected a PCB manufacturer that has experience with prototype and mass production runs for boards that are similar to ours. By using the same manufacturer all the way through, we were able to correct and avoid issues that would affect mass production runs early on.
As of now our delivery dates are based on worst case scenario lead times with additional headroom for error for all our parts. Although we won't go as far as promising earlier delivery dates, there exists a good chance of it happening.
To further ensure the quality of shipped bladeRFs, we will run an extensive physical and electrical tests to verify each device. Additionally, each bladeRF's VCTCXO will be individually calibrated to a near perfect 38.4MHz frequency using a very high fidelity frequency counter.
