Wireless Over-the-Air Testing using SDRs

Overview

In this webinar, you will learn about MATLAB’s radio hardware support capabilities that enable you to connect your algorithms to a wide range of supported software-defined radio (SDR) devices.  You can use these live radio signals to verify your designs with waveform generation and over-the-air testing.  You will also learn about taking those designs to hardware by generating and deploying HDL code on the FPGA fabric of your radios.

We will showcase how Communications Toolbox SDR support can facilitate the entire over-the-air testing workflow.  This includes connecting your software-based transmitter and receiver algorithms to SDRs and transferring live I/Q data to/from MATLAB and Simulink.  We will show how to use received signals to analyze your device under test (DUT), characterize your channel, or assess performance of your end-to-end design by computing metrics such as EVM, ACLR, or BER.

We will then show how you can perform hardware/software co-design to implement a receiver for a familiar communications waveform on a Zynq SDR.  Starting with a behavioral Simulink model, we will show how the design can be partitioned so that the lower rate operations can be deployed on an ARM, and the higher rate operations can be deployed on the Zynq’s FPGA.

Highlights

• Generate 5G NR, WLAN or generic OFDM waveforms using Wireless Waveform Generator App
• With a few commands, connect MATLAB to SDRs such as Pluto SDR, USRP, RTL-SDR or Zynq Radio
• Transmit signals over the air using SDR
• Acquire streaming or burst IQ data over the air using the same or a different kind of SDR
• Perform signal quality measurements such as EVM and ACLR in MATLAB and Simulink
• Generate deployable C and HDL on a Zynq SDR from a behavioral Simulink model

About the Presenter

Mike McLernon is an advocate for communications and software-defined radio products at MathWorks.  Since joining MathWorks in 2001, he has overseen the development of numerous PHY layer capabilities in Communications Toolbox, and of connectivity to multiple SDR hardware platforms.  He has worked in the communications field for over 30 years, in both the satellite and wireless industries.  Mike received his BSEE from the University of Virginia and his MEEE from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.