Software Defined Radio (SDR)

Est. read time: 3 minutes | Last updated: July 20, 2025 by John Gentile

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Contents

• Waveforms
  • Communications
    • Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11)
    • Cellular (LTE/3GPP, 4G/5G)
    • DVB-S2
    • Bluetooth
    • LoRaWAN
    • ZigBee
    • Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) Modulation
  • Datasources & Recordings
• Software Defined Radio (SDR)
  • SDR Software/Frameworks
    • GNU Radio
    • Other SDR Frameworks
    • SDR Frontends
  • SDR Hardware
    • RTL-SDR
    • Ettus Research SDRs
    • Other SDR Hardware
• References

Waveforms

Communications

Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11)

• How a Wifi chip works internally
• gr-ieee802-11 - IEEE 802.11 a/g/p Transceiver in GNU Radio
• open-sdr manages open-source WiFI baseband stacks that use FPGAs and plug into Linux like openwifi
• Nuand/bladeRF-wiphy: bladeRF-wiphy is an open-source IEEE 802.11 compatible software defined radio VHDL modem
• Marsrocky/Awesome-WiFi-CSI-Sensing: a list of awesome papers and cool resources on WiFi CSI sensing.

Cellular (LTE/3GPP, 4G/5G)

• srsRAN - Open Source 4G/5G software
• open5G_phy: A resource efficient, customizable, synthesizable 5G NR lower PHY written in Verilog
• free5GRAN: free5GRAN is an open-source 5G RAN stack. The current version includes a receiver which decodes MIB & SIB1 data. It also acts as a cell scanner. free5GRAN works in SA mode.
• SysSec-KAIST/LTESniffer: An Open-source LTE Downlink/Uplink Eavesdropper
• Private LTE with Analog ADALM-PLUTO
• LTE-Cell-Scanner: OpenCL, SDR, TDD/FDD LTE cell scanner, full stack from A/D samples to SIB ASN1 messages decoded in PDSCH, (optimized for RTL-SDR HACKRF and BladeRF board)
• Evrytania/Matlab-Library: Miscellaneous Matlab functions that are useful for wireless communications. Primarily focused on LTE / 3GPP.

DVB-S2

• igorauad/gr-dvbs2rx: DVB-S2 receiver blocks for GNU Radio
• csdvb/dvbs2_tx: Nexø DVB-S2 transmitter application
• mattzgto/bladerf-dvbs2: 16-APSK DVB-S2 Transmitter for BladeRF
• OpenResearchInstitute/dvb_fpga: RTL implementation of components for DVB-S2
• freecores/dvb_s2_ldpc_decoder: DVB-S2 LDPC Decoder
• phase4ground/dvb_fpga: RTL implementation of components for DVB-S2
• CCSDS Protocols over DVB-S2—Summary of Definition, Implementation, and Performance
• aff3ct/dvbs2: DVB-S2 SDR Transceiver.
• A Flexible and Portable Real-time DVB-S2 Transceiver using Multicore and SIMD CPUs

Bluetooth

• DEF CON 30 RF Village - Mike Ryan - Building a Modern Bluetooth Sniffer for SDRs - YouTube
• JiaoXianjun/BTLE: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) packet sniffer and transmitter for both standard and non standard (raw bit) based on Software Defined Radio (SDR).
• OpenHaystack: track personal Bluetooth devices via Apple’s Find My network.
• GitHub - newhouseb/onebitbt: A Bluetooth Low Energy Radio using FPGA SERDES: No ADC, AGC, filters, mixers, or amplifiers required.

LoRaWAN

• Meshtastic: open source mesh network software running on low-power, affordable devices.
  • Meshtastic SDR: This GnuRadio project aims at being a full transceiver stack (RX and TX) for a software defined radio to communicate with the Meshtastic LoRa network.
• LoRaWAN On Helium Network

ZigBee

• gr-ieee802-15-4 ZigBee Transceiver GNU Radio block

Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) Modulation

• OTFS Modulation- Mathworks
• OTFS − A Mathematical Foundation for Communication and Radar Sensing in the Delay-Doppler Domain

Datasources & Recordings

• IQEngine
• SDR Angel I/Q Files

Software Defined Radio (SDR)

SDR Software/Frameworks

GNU Radio

GNU Radio is an open-source SDR framework for prototyping communications systems.

• Comprehensive GNU Radio Archive Network (CGRAN): list of GNU Radio blocks and repos.
• gnuradio/volk: The Vector Optimized Library of Kernels Tutorials - GNU Radio SuggestedReading - GNU Radio

Other SDR Frameworks

• LiquidSDR: home to liquid-dsp, a free and open-source signal processing library for software-defined radios written in C. Its purpose is to provide a set of extensible DSP modules that do not rely on external dependencies or cumbersome frameworks. The project is now hosted on github.
• SoapySDR: vendor and platform neutral SDR library.
• FutureSDR: experimental asynchronous SDR runtime for heterogeneous architectures.
• Sionna - NVIDIA Labs: Sionna is a hardware-accelerated differentiable open-source library for research on communication systems.

SDR Frontends

• sdrangel

SDR Hardware

RTL-SDR

RTL-SDRs are cheap and omnipresent, RX-only SDRs.

• RTL-SDR Quick Start Guide: general guides to RTL-SDR features and dipole antenna usage.
• RTL-SDR for Linux Quick Start Guide: installation instructions for necessary drivers and libraries to get up and running.
• osmocom rtl-sdr wiki

Ettus Research SDRs

Ettus has been a long time maker of high-quality SDR HW. They also open-source nearly all schematics, software, and FPGA firmware/HDL. They also maintain the USRP Hardware Driver (UHD), an open-source driver library across their devices, and well supported by other open-source frameworks, like GNU Radio.

Other SDR Hardware

• A comprehensive list of SDR hardware supported by GNU Radio.
• LimeSDR Mini 2.0: open-source, small form factor USB 3.0 SDR, utilizing the Lime LMS7002M RF ASIC.
  • There’s also the original, slightly larger LimeSDR
  • LimeRFE RF Front End
• AntSDR E200 small form factor with AD936x front end, similar to PlutoSDR and compatible with both UHD and ADI IIO driver stacks.
• ADI CN0417 2.4GHz small amplifier eval board
• greatscottgadgets/hackrf: low cost software radio platform
• YARD Stick One - Great Scott Gadgets: half-duplex sub-1GHz SDR.
• rpitx - RF transmitter for Raspberry Pi
• osmo-fl2k VGA adapter transmitter
• RFNM

References

• Learn SDR with Prof Jason - YouTube Playlist
• veeresht/CommPy
• Wireless Pi
• MathWorks Communications, SATCOM and Wireless HDL Toolboxes

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