Would you like to review the NI USRP B206mini-i?

OwainM 3 months ago

We are exploring the opportunity to offer you the USRP B206mini-i from NI to review.

What is the B206mini-i?

The NI USRP B206mini-i is a Software Defined Radio (SDR) / cognitive radio witha frequency range of between 70 Mhz to 6 GHz. It contains a user-programmable AMD Spartan-6 XC6SLX150 FPGA and the RF front end uses the Analog Devices AD9364 RFIC transceiver with 56 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth. The board is powered by USB 3.0, and includes connection for GPIO, JTAG, 10 MHz clock reference or PPS time reference input signal.

Details

https://www.ni.com/en/shop/hardware/software-defined-radios/model-usrp-b206mini-i

https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/usrp-b206mini-i-specs/page/specs.html

https://learn.ni.com/learn/article/getting-started-with-usrp

kmikemoo 3 months ago

I'm absolutely interested. It's above my pay grade, but I'm interested. I could give a beginners perspective. We have a couple of radio amateurs operating in the GHz range. It would be pretty cool to see how tight their beams are and maybe even use it to measure spread to enhance dish to dish alignment.
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JWx 3 months ago in reply to embeddedguy

the link was replaced with links to the manufacturer's website in the meantime - thanks OwainM
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battlecoder 3 months ago

SDR devices fascinate me to no end, but I have very little experience with wireless and radio. In an attempt to fix this, a couple of years ago I bought a spectrum analyzer and a HackRF One, and had TONS of ideas and things I wanted to do with them. I managed to play a bit with both instruments and I was extremely hyped about all the potential they had to unravel and dissect the mystery of radio waves. Unfortunately, all of that had to be shelved to make room for other more urgent projects, and I've not come back to the world of radio again.

So as cool as this device looks (with its combination of SDR and FPGA) I think I would not be able to put it through its paces. At most some basic tests, which is not what I think a device like this deserves.
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embeddedguy 3 months ago

This is an interesting device, but it is very specific to SDR applications. Unlike RedPitaya that can be used as versatile applications such as Test and measurement instrument, etc, etc.

Getting started link is not working??
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ricard2k 3 months ago

I would interested in some radio experiments - if digitalisation for radar, bluetooth - wifi spectrum.
And better than anything to check if Ni has finally recognised that labview times have passed and are providing good C/Phyton libraries.
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mrsander 3 months ago

We are a heavy NI shop, so testing out their new SDR would be a great addition. As mentioned, shop is already well versed in Labview, realtime and fpga programming.
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ravikiranbhamidi 3 months ago

This is an awesome product and I would love to road test it with the use case of concurrent multi-protocol ISM band devices emulation making use of its complete Bandwidth of 56 MHz.
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vmate 3 months ago in reply to DaNobody

The TinySA Ultra might be of interest to you then, a spectrum analyzer is better suited for that task, since SDRs have relatively narrow bandwith, in this case, 56 MHz.
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JWx 3 months ago

I think this roadtest could be combined with "element13 Foil Headwave Aluminium aTtenuator DevKit" to provide SDR with shielded enclosure...
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vmate 3 months ago

Well, this brings back memories, I originally joined e14 to apply for a USRP B205mini-i RoadTest. It would be super cool to get a second chance to test one out.
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