Ultrawideband USRP-Based Channel Sounding Utilizing the RFNoC Framework

Abstract: This paper shows how an ultrawideband channel sounder can be built with the latest National Instruments (NI) Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) equipment, featuring onboard FPGA processing and utilizing open-source tools. Compared to other USRP-based channel sounders, our design is versatile, eases the requirements on the data link between the USRPs and the host, limits the measurement data size, and increases the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio due to averaging. Furthermore, this paper serves as a proof-of-concept for other researchers seeking to build a channel sounder based on the USRP equipment.