Using Sivers mmWave equipment on COSMOS SandBox1

Description

A pair of Sivers EVK06002s, evaluation kits for Sivers IMA TRX BF/01, are deployed on COSMOS SandBox1. TRX BF/01 is a 16+16 IEEE802.11ad Beamforming Transceiver with a complete Radio front-end with 57-66 GHz mmWave frequency range. This tutorial demonstrates how to transmit and receive a signal in the 60GHz mmWave spectrum using these Sivers front-ends.

Current mmWave setup in COSMOS SB1 looks as shown in the figure below.

In the benchtop 60GHz setup of SandBox1, either USRP X310 or RFSoC ZCU111 can be used for baseband processing. RF Switch boxes as shown in the figure are used to select between X310 and RFSoC. RF switch commands are explained at wiki:/Resources/Services/RFSwitch. To select X310s as baseband processing units, all the switches in the RF switch boxes are configured to port 1.

This experiment uses USRP X310s for baseband processing. The X310s are equipped with BasicTX and BasicRX daughtercards. BasicTX (​https://www.ettus.com/all-products/basictx/) daughtercard is a simple wideband (250MHz) interface to the raw DAC signals from USRP. Similarly BasicRX (​https://www.ettus.com/all-products/basicrx/) provides a simple, wideband interface to USRP ADCs.

Sivers control software on srv3, srv4 talk to the mmWave front-ends over USB links. Host GNURadio applications on srv3, srv4, send/receive data samples to/from the X310s over 10G Ethernet links.

Prerequisites

In order to access the test bed, create a reservation and have it approved by the reservation service. Access to the resources is granted after the reservation is confirmed. Please follow the process shown on the COSMOS getting started page to get started.

Resources required

2 servers srv3-lg1, srv4-lg1, 2 USRP X310s rfdev3-1, rfdev3-2 and both the Sivers platforms rfdev3-5, rfdev3-6 on COSMOS SB1.

Tutorial Setup

Follow the steps below to gain access to the sandbox 1 console and set up nodes with appropriate images.

1. If you don't have one already, sign up for a ​COSMOS account
2. Create a resource reservation on sandbox 1
3. Login into sandbox 1 console (console.sb1.cosmos-lab.org) with two SSH sessions.
4. Make sure all the nodes and devices used in the experiment are turned off:

   omf tell -a offh -t srv3-lg1,srv4-lg1,rfdev3-1,rfdev3-2,rfdev3-5,rfdev3-6  
   

5. The image sivers_sb1_cosmos.ndz is [baseline_uhd.ndz] with Sivers control software installed. Load sivers_sb1_cosmos.ndz on srv3,srv4.

   omf load -i sivers_sb1_cosmos.ndz -t srv3-lg1,srv4-lg1
   

6. Turn all the required resources on and check the status

   omf tell -a on -t srv3-lg1,srv4-lg1,rfdev3-1,rfdev3-2,rfdev3-5,rfdev3-6
   

   omf stat -t system:topo:allres
   

7. ssh to the nodes, use option -Y for using GUI.

Experiment Execution

Find and prepare USRPs

• The IP addresses for Ethernet Port 1(10G) on the X310s rfdev3-1 and rfdev3-2 were hard-coded to 10.115.2.2 and 10.115.2.3 respectively. To access them from srv3-lg1 or srv4-lg1, configure the network interface enp1s0 as follows

  root@srv3-lg1:~# ifconfig enp1s0 10.115.1.1 netmask 255.255.0.0 mtu 9000 up
  root@srv3-lg1:~# ifconfig enp1s0
  enp1s0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 9000
          inet 10.115.1.1  netmask 255.255.0.0  broadcast 10.115.255.255
          inet6 fe80::f652:14ff:fe83:b930  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
          ether f4:52:14:83:b9:30  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
          RX packets 2839670  bytes 20838442698 (20.8 GB)
          RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
          TX packets 78864  bytes 6661472 (6.6 MB)
          TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
  

• Run uhd_find_devices to check if the X310s can be reached

  root@srv3-lg1:~# uhd_find_devices --args="addr=10.115.2.3"
  [INFO] [UHD] linux; GNU C++ version 7.4.0; Boost_106501; UHD_3.14.1.1-release
  --------------------------------------------------
  -- UHD Device 0
  --------------------------------------------------
  Device Address:
      serial: 31B6FFA
      addr: 10.115.2.3
      fpga: HG
      name: sdr2-md3
      product: X310
      type: x300
  

Prepare Sivers 60GHz front-ends

• To demonstrate the experiment here, we use Sivers front-end SN0240 as transmitter and SN0243 as receiver

SN0240 as transmitter	SN0243 as receiver
root@srv4-lg1:~/ederenv# ./start_mb1.sh —gui SN0240	root@srv3-lg1:~/ederenv# ./start_mb1.sh —gui SN0243
Click "TX enable" and "LO leakage Cal"	Click "RX enable"

• Make sure the RF switch boxes are configured to use X310s (all switches set to port 1)

  root@console:~# curl am1.cosmos-lab.org:5054/rf_switch/status?name=rfsw1.sb1.cosmos-lab.org,rfsw2.sb1.cosmos-lab.org
  
  <response status="OK">
    <rf_switch name="rfsw1.sb1.cosmos-lab.org" num_of_switches="4">
      <switch number="1" port="1"/>
      <switch number="2" port="1"/>
      <switch number="3" port="1"/>
      <switch number="4" port="1"/>
    </rf_switch>
    <rf_switch name="rfsw2.sb1.cosmos-lab.org" num_of_switches="4">
      <switch number="1" port="1"/>
      <switch number="2" port="1"/>
      <switch number="3" port="1"/>
      <switch number="4" port="1"/>
    </rf_switch>
  </response>
  

• If some or all the ports are set to "2", set them to port "1"

  curl "am1.cosmos-lab.org:5054/rf_switch/set?name=rfsw1.sb1.cosmos-lab.org,rfsw2.sb1.cosmos-lab.org&switch=1,2,3,4&port=2"
  

Execution

Run the experiment

• Start transmit application on the TX node(srv1-lg1). Run UHD application tx_waveforms to transmit a sine wave.

  root@srv3-lg1:~/uhd/host/build/examples# ./tx_waveforms --args="addr=10.115.2.2" --freq 100e6 --rate 200e6 --ant AB --subdev A:AB --wave-freq 1e6 --wave-type SINE
  

• Start receive application on the RX node(srv2-lg1). Run rx_ascii_art_dft to observe the sinewave as shown in the picture below

  root@srv2-lg1:~# /usr/lib/uhd/examples/rx_ascii_art_dft --args="addr=10.115.2.3" --freq 100e6 --rate 200e6 --ref-lvl -20 --ant AB --subdev B:AB