Wideband Channel Sounding with USRP X310s

Description

Channel sounding is the process of evaluating the characteristics of a radio environment. Evaluating the power delay profile (PDP) of a radio channel helps in developing statistical models for channel simulation.

This tutorial demonstrates how to use the RFNoC channel sounder design for obtaining the PDP of channels up to 100MHz wide. An FPGA correlator module computes real time correlation power, and an averaging module, averages contiguous sets of PDP over time, and sends the result to host CPU. This design is compatible with 3rd generation Ettus USRP devices. This tutorial uses USRP X310s on ORBIT grid.

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 work flow page to get started.

Resources required

2 host nodes and 2 USRP X310s are required for this experiment. USRP X310 devices in ORBIT grid are located in the massive MIMO mini-racks ​https://www.orbit-lab.org/wiki/Hardware/bDomains/aGrid#Massive-MIMOmini-racks.

Execution

Prepare the host nodes

Determine the set of nodes that you're using. If you have a topology assigned, it will be entered in the form "system:topo:group-red" for example.

• Load channel-sounder.ndz on a pair of nodes (group assigned to you)

  prasanthi@console.grid:~$ omf load -i channel-sounder.ndz -t system:topo:group-red
  

• Turn the nodes on

  prasanthi@console.grid:~$ omf tell -a on -t system:topo:group-red
  

• Check the status

  prasanthi@console.grid:~$ omf stat -t system:topo:group-red
  

  -----------------------------------------------
  Node: node19-1.grid.orbit-lab.org       State: POWERON
  Node: node20-1.grid.orbit-lab.org       State: POWERON
  -----------------------------------------------
  

• ssh to the nodes

  prasanthi@console.grid:~$ ssh root@node19-1
  

Prepare the USRPs

• If you are using a topology, USRPs are assigned by default. For example, group-red uses 23-16 as TX and 24-16 as RX.

Group color	TX USRP	RX USRP
red	10.10.23.16	10.10.24.16
yellow	10.10.23.1	10.10.24.18
green	10.10.23.14	10.10.24.14
purple	10.10.23.15	10.10.24.15
blue	10.10.23.12	10.10.24.13
black	10.10.23.11	10.10.24.11
cyan	10.10.23.13	10.10.24.12
white	10.10.23.18	10.10.24.17
orange	10.10.23.2	10.10.23.3
pink	10.10.23.4	10.10.23.5
tan	10.10.23.6	10.10.23.7
gray	10.10.24.3	local X310(PCIe)
brown	10.10.24.4	local X310(PCIe)
silver	10.10.24.5	local X310(PCIe)
gold	10.10.24.6	local X310(PCIe)

• Check if USRPs have the modules required for the experiment by running uhd_usrp_probe on each on of them. For USRP over the network, run

  root@node19-1:~# uhd_usrp_probe --args="addr=10.10.23.16"
  

  For local USRP (PCIe), run

  root@node3-20:~# uhd_usrp_probe --args="resource=RIO0"
  

  |   |     _____________________________________________________
  |   |    /
  |   |   |       RFNoC blocks on this device:
  |   |   |
  |   |   |   * DmaFIFO_0
  |   |   |   * Radio_0
  |   |   |   * Radio_1
  |   |   |   * DDC_0
  |   |   |   * DUC_0
  |   |   |   * Corrmag63avg8k_0
  |   |   |   * Spreader_0
  |   |   |   * SpecSense2k_0
  |   |   |   * FIFO_0
  |   |   |   * FIFO_1
  

  If you see the above at the end of uhd_usrp_probe output, the USRPs are ready. Spreader_0 is used to spread the transmit signal, and Corrmag63avg8k_0 is the correlator on the receive side.

Run the experiment

• Start transmit application on the TX node. If you were assigned a group, the command below will start the application on the assigned TX USRP, with a bandwidth of 100MHz.

  root@node19-1:~# /root/uhd/host/build/examples/channel_sounding_tx --group red
  

• Start receive application on the RX node. If you were assigned a group, the command below will start the application on the assigned RX USRP

    root@node20-1:~# ./uhd/host/build/examples/channel_sounding_rx --group red
  

• Download ​channel_sounding_display.html (also attached at the bottom of this tutorial) and open it in your browser. Select your group from the drop down menu and click Connect. Then, click the start button, and you should see PDP of the channel.