Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • State Verified Answer
  • Replies 7 replies
  • Subscribers 348 subscribers
  • Views 866 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Regarding the Avnet RFSoC Explorer

amitjonak

Hello everyone! am a Masters student studying in Taiwan. Recently my lab bought Xilinx ZCU111 board loaded with the Qorvo RF front end.

 

I am planning to verify frequency-hopping application on this board. But my question is, since the qorvo RF front end card has 2 channels that operate in and around the 1.8MHz band, how am I suppose to verify that a signal can hop at let's say 1200 MHz or 2200 MHz? Does it mean I can verify only by hopping close to 1842 MHz?

 

And another question is, in the DAC tile drop-down menu, I see an option "From Simulink". When I select this option nothing happens. What does it do here?

Thank you very much in advance. Waiting eagerly for answers.

Special mention to since I believe you are the biggest name when it comes to Avnet RFSoC Explorer.

  • 0

    Hi Amit,

     

    The RF filters on the Qorvo 2 Channel RF Front-end 1.8 GHz Card (AES-LPA-QRF1800-RVS-G) are tuned to LTE Band 3.

     

    CH1: 1842.5 MHz (TX) and 1747.5 MHz (RX)

    CH2: 1747.5 MHz (TX) and 1842.5 MHz (RX)

     

    These are bandpass filters with BW ~ 75 MHz.

    So your frequency hops will be limited to that narrow band.

     

    Regarding your question about RFSoC Explorer, I'll post an answer over on the MathWorks forum.

     

    Thanks!

    /Matt

  • 0 in reply to mbrown

    Dear Matt,

     

    Thank you very much for the reply. Yes I figured that out and now it works fine. But as far as the second part of my question goes, when are you planning to answer it on MATLAB forum?

     

    Btw, I do have another problem with Avnet's RFSoC explorer. Whenever I configure the ADC and acquire it, I get a spectrum analyzer output of the baseband signal after the DDC downconversion. However, the signal plot environment of the RFSoC explorer doesn't show any output. If I change it back to ADC output instead of baseband, nothing happens. All I get is an output at the spectral analyzer which pops out as a separate window. I have attached a picture. Please look at the place where my mouse cursor points. It is the signal plot area and is left blank. Anyway to fix it?2021.contentimage_192710.jpg

  • 0 in reply to amitjonak

    Hi Amit,

     

    You're discovering several of our 'coming soon' placeholders in the GUI canvas. Perfect timing too as we're currently working on these areas.

     

    For visualization of ADC capture data we've been relying solely upon the MATLAB Spectrum Analyzer. That changes in the next release (due end of Nov) where we add time series and frequency domain visualization in the blank pane you referenced above. Using Spectrum Analyzer will remain an option as it is incredibly powerful, but we'll also display plots within RFSoC Explorer for convenience.

     

    As for the Baseband/ADC output switch, it has no real meaning in the ADC context. For the DAC it makes sense to model the DUC and plot the digital output before it is synthesized into the analog domain.This eases the task of frequency planning. But on the ADC side there's no equivalent. You capture the data at the end of the digital path (including the DDC). The ADC baseband/ADC output switch will be removed in the next release.

     

    Regarding your question about the "From Simulink" option in RFSoC Explorer, I did post an answer on the MathWorks forum.

     

    /Matt

  • 0 in reply to mbrown

    Thank you Matt once again. I would love to wait for the coming editions with the necessary changes. Btw, I would be grateful if you could answer another question that is bugging me. When I press the "acquire" button, I get the baseband waveform of the transmitted signal. But how to get hold of the received bits here? I mean, let's say I send 100 OFDM symbols, with the help of a random set of 44 bits for each frame, which makes it a total of 4400 bits. Now, I send this OFDM signal across the channel and receive it by the RF sampling ADC at the receiver, and get back the spectrum at baseband successfully. But when I check the workspace area of MATLAB, I just find "rx_sample_buffer" data, whose size is around 1000000x1 of type int16. Now, what data this buffer hold? I tried to convert it to double and perform an ofdmdemod and pskdemod, but then I am clueless here since I don't know which portion of this buffer actually resembles the data I sent through the transmitter. How am I supposed to get back the received bits so that I can perform a BER calculation?

     

    Thank you in advance, and I am beholden!

     

    ~Amit

  • 0 in reply to amitjonak

    Hi Amit,

    The MATLAB workspace variable 'rx_sample_buffer' contains the raw ADC samples, collected at the end of the RFSoC digital data path. That means you're getting the vector after any Digital Down Conversion filtering and after the NCO Mixer. The vector is either complex or real, depending on how you've configured the NCO Mixer.

     

    /Matt

  • 0 in reply to mbrown

    Dear Matt,

     

    Is there any updates on when we can receive the latest release of the Avnet RFSoC explorer?

  • 0 in reply to amitjonak

    Hi Amit - the next release (v2.0) is expected to be ready by year's end.