software radio development kits?

[Robert Morein]

Which manufacturers offer development kits for spread spectrum software
radio, ie., high speed A/D with an appropriate front end, and programmable
DSP with a compatible data rate?

Also requesting recommendations for graduate level textbooks on
spread-spectrum communications.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

"Robert Morein" <herethereeverywhere@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:MPKdnbXon8m0eVTfRVn-hA@comcast.com...

Which manufacturers offer development kits for spread spectrum software
radio, ie., high speed A/D with an appropriate front end, and programmable
DSP with a compatible data rate?

A really nice, inexpensive solution is the GNU Radio USRP, designed by Matt
Ettus. See: http://comsec.com/wiki?UniversalSoftwareRadioPeripheral

It's really just a radio front-end/back-end: It uses your PC for data
processing, which makes it a lot more flexible and cheaper than someone's DSP
board. On the downside, there'd be a fair amount of effort to take anything
you designed with it and turn it into a self-contained "box," but even this
isn't that hard these days... there's a guy out there who has a kit that does
this, although I'm not able to lay my hands on it at the moment (it's an HF
rig using a small form factor PC running embedded Windoze). Anyway, the point
is that for research, it's hard to beat a USRP on a price/performance basis
assuming you already have access to a decent PC.

Also requesting recommendations for graduate level textbooks on
spread-spectrum communications.

Dixon's books are classics...

---Joel Kolstad