Support for USRP boards

open-sdr / openwifi

open-source IEEE 802.11 WiFi baseband FPGA (chip) design: driver, software

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0

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Support for USRP boards #27

Closed aygunbaltaci closed 3 years ago

aygunbaltaci commented 3 years ago

Hello,

Are USRP devices (e.g. B210) supported or is there any plan to support it in the future? Following the conversation in issue #14, I guess that B210 would also not be supported but I am not clear.

Thanks!

JiaoXianjun commented 3 years ago

Hello,

Thanks for reaching our project. Currently we don’t have a plan in the near future to support USRP B series.

May I ask what is the purpose for you to support USRP? The cheapest USRP (like the B200mini) has the same/similar price as adrv9364z7020 or zedboard+fmcomms4, but USRP B200mini has much smaller FPGA than the Zynq platform I mentioned. And in USRP B200mini, there is no ARM processor.

The Zynq platform I mentioned (adrv9364z7020 or zedboard+fmcomms4) offer you a whole embedded Linux and FPGA WiFi card in the same chip. From this perspective, USRP B200mini is not competitive at all for WiFi research compared with the Zynq platform I mentioned.

aygunbaltaci commented 3 years ago

Hi JiaoXianjun,

Thanks for the information. I understand your argument regarding the Zynq platform. The reason why I asked is just because I have B210 in stock and it is quite common SDR on the market. It is just very convenient as many open source projects support this board.

Best Regards Aygün

paigeadelethompson commented 4 months ago

but USRP B200mini has much smaller FPGA than the Zynq platform I mentioned.

Does it matter that much if it is smaller ?

ohault commented 2 weeks ago

Could you please add support USRP SDR devices ?

Ref : https://files.ettus.com/manual/md_fpga.html

JiaoXianjun commented 2 weeks ago

Could you please add support USRP SDR devices ?

Ref : https://files.ettus.com/manual/md_fpga.html

yes we can, but need efforts. And no big motivation. reasons:

usrp is for IQ streaming between hardware and computer, openwifi is a wifi NIC. even we put openwifi on USRP, USRP will become a wifi NIC, and it can not be used as IQ streaming anymore.
the hardware we currently supported is already much cheaper (and more powerful) than usrp. so no need to go for usrp. such as this, only 329 USD: https://www.crowdsupply.com/microphase-technology/antsdr-e200#products
differentiation. openwifi's design is unique. ARM linux and wifi (FPGA fabric) are in the single chip (Xilinx SoC), so it has ultra low latency, and many other benefit. going for usrp will just lose all these uniqueness and benefits.

ohault commented 2 weeks ago

Here are also some others arguments:

USRP is a reference SDR hardware platform in almost all academic and research circles.
Why you would buy a new SDR hardware when you are already using USRP
The goal here is not to create an open hardware WIFI custom ASIC for the mass as a nic, but for engineering, research, education and development.

Can you please re-open this ticket, especially because some USRP models are already also relying on Zinq ( https://files.ettus.com/manual/md_usrp3_build_instructions.html ) ?

JiaoXianjun commented 2 weeks ago

then feel free to try to do the porting. we would glad to answer question about know-how of our current non-usrp designs.