Semi-Automation of Wideband Channel Sounding Transmitter

There is increasing need to characterize wider bands of the wireless channel as capacity needs and frequency ranges increase through channel sounding. However, equipment that can generate wideband instantaneous bandwidths for transmitting these wideband channel sounding waveforms can be cumbersome and expensive. In this paper, we explore a cost effective solution to generating GHz-wide channel sounding signals by utilizing a B210 Ettus USRP. Although this SDR has a smaller instantaneous bandwidth, it is used to transmit an FMCW channel sounding signal by retuning the radio once the current intermediate sweep has elapsed. With this method, a 1 GHz sweep is achieved with various other configuration settings to modify the structure of the sweep. Additionally, the time for retuning the B210 Ettus USRP is quantified to be 3.246 ms on average, yet the overall dwell time is dominated by GNU Radio command execution.