The Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) Family of Low‐Cost SDRs

Software‐defined radio (SDR), a key enabling technology for opportunistic spectrum access (OSA), allows great flexibility in designing communication systems that can dynamically adapt to the radio environment. The highly successful Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) product family of SDR devices has been used in many OSA applications. This chapter introduces SDR concepts and covers the history, design, and capabilities of the USRP family. RFNoC, a system for extending the flexibility of software to the design of signal processing in FPGAs, is introduced, and a sample application is presented.