An Introduction to GNURadio

GNURadio is a Software Defined  Radio project that was designed to convert all hardware problems into software problems.GNURadio package is provided with a complete HDTV transmitter and receiver, a spectrum analyzer, an oscilloscope, a multichannel receiver and a wide collection of modulators and demodulators.Its applications are primarily written using the Python programming language, while the supplied, performance-criticGNURadio is a Software Defined  Radio project that was designed to convert all hardware problems into software problems.

GNURadio package is provided with a complete HDTV transmitter and receiver, a spectrum analyzer, an oscilloscope, a multichannel receiver and a wide collection of modulators and demodulators.Its applications are primarily written using the Python programming language, while the supplied, performance-critical signal processing path is implemented in C++ using processor floating point extensions where available. The GNU Radio project created the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) which is a digital acquisition (DAQ) system. It’s a general purpose motherboard which can host a wide selection of daughter boards, each of which implements a signal processing block found in the GNURadio software package.

GNU Radio is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3. All of the code is copyright of the Free Software Foundation.

Strengths of GNURadio:

1. It can be reconfigured easily.
2. It can be easily and rapidly upgraded with newer versions.
3. It’s possible to talk and listen to multiple channels at the same time.
4. GNURadio package is provided with a complete HDTV transmitter and   receiver, a spectrum analyzer, an oscilloscope, a multichannel receiver and a wide collection of modulators and demodulators.

   
Weakness of GNURadio:  

1.  GNURadio emphasizes only on the use of USRP hardware.       
2.  In order to interface a new hardware, we need to create hardware  dependent GNURadio specific blocks.