GNU radio versus LabVIEW

[saeedafra]

LabVIEW seems to be the easy and straigh-forward software to use NI USRPs. I don't know much about LabVIEW but I know a bit about programming in GNU radio. It seems extremely flexible and attractive, at least for a programmer.

So my question is that am I going to face too much trouble to get the NI USRP to work with GNU radio? I read here and there about the FPGA image and firmware. I'd rather not touch the hardware for now, as other people are going to use it, probably via LabVIEW.

Thanks.

[Sarah_Y · Accepted solution]

Hi saeedafra,

I'm not sure exactly what your question is.  Using an NI-USRP with GNU Radio should not be an issue.  Just make sure you put the correct FW and FPGA image on the device, as you mentioned.  If you want to be able to use the same FW/FPGA for LabVIEW and for GNU Radio/UHD, I would use UHD 3.4.4 and NI-USRP 1.2.  It is not the most recent version of UHD, but it will prevent you from having to reflash the images to go back and forth between the different software platforms.  Please let me know if this doesn't fully address your question, and I'll do my best to get you the answer.

[ErikL]

If you're looking to get started with LabVIEW and NI USRP, all you need is a copy of LabVIEW and the NI USRP.  Once everything is installed you can run the examples within 5 minutes.

We've seen and shared examples with up to 8x8 MIMO and 256 QAM modulation with USRP and LabVIEW.

MIMO with LabVIEW and USRP:  http://www.ni.com/white-paper/14311/en/

Downloads:

LabVIEW Evaluation:  http://www.ni.com/trylabview/

USRP Drivers and toolkits (ship with NI USRP on Getting started DVD) 

   NI USRP 1.2 Driver: http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3696/lang/en

Example program community (in addition to those that ship with the driver): https://decibel.ni.com/content/groups/ni-usrp-example-labview-vis?view=documents

A great place to get started:  http://www.ni.com/white-paper/14518/en/

Regards,

Erik

[saeedafra]

Thanks Sarah.

Your point on reflashing and going back and forth is exactly what I need. I'll give it a try.

[saeedafra]

Thanks Erik,

I can imagine that it must not be difficult to get along with LabVIEW. but what if I need to get to the bottom of things or write my own blocks?

Do you know if there is anything GNU radio offers to make it better than LabVIEW? I don't insist on using GNU radio but its open source nature is, I guess, a big plus.

[HustLiliAn]

Hi, Sarah, you mean  if we used the UHD 3.4.4, then we can use usrp 2920 with GNU or Labview at the same time ? Is it right?  And I just need to use the NI-USRP Configuration Utility to update the Firmware and FPGA image with UHD3.4.4? Right?  Where I can download the Firmware and Fpga image? Thank you ！

[Sarah_Y]

Hi HustLiliAn,

The NI-USRP driver is based off of UHD 003.004.004, so as long as you are using that version of UHD, the images for both should be compatible.  The FW and FPGA images can be downloaded here:

http://files.ettus.com/binaries/maint_images/archive/uhd-images_003.004.004-release.zip

Or you can use the ones that ship with NI-USRP 1.2.  You will need to make sure you are using UHD 003.004.004.  An installer for it can be found here:

http://code.ettus.com/redmine/ettus/projects/uhd/wiki/UHD_Windows

[fffdddooo]

I'm wondering wich one of them will fullfill better mi requeriments.

I would like to use an USRP to make something like this example and beeing able of inserting a virtual oscilloscope, spectrum analizer, etc. to take measures of the output of each block.

Is it possible with either labview or gnu radio?

[derjan]

As a user with some experience with Gnuradio and with LabVIEW my opinion is that you can reach your goals with both approaches. The approaches are very different, Gnuradio has the more classical programming approach while LabVIEW has the graphical approach (even though no one stops you from using C-components with LabVIEW). There is a lot of proof that complex systems can be built with both approaches. In my opinion, LabVIEW is more easily accessible and better documented, but your mileage may vary.

If your focus is the exploration of the system, looking into the blocks, analyzing the signals live as they are being processed by using scope or spectral views, then you will most likely enjoy LabVIEW a lot since this is especially easy to do.

[fffdddooo]

Altough the topic was GnuRadio y was thinking on GNU Radio Companion. For what I've seen you can play with block, record signals to files in any output of a block or plot them. I thought yo can do the same with labview but someone said me that it was not possible.

regards

derjan escribió:

The approaches are very different, Gnuradio has the more classical programming approach while LabVIEW has the graphical approach