hz.tools/sdr: go bindings for software defined radios
Paul Tagliamonte 2023-02-22 projectThis… is the big one. This library represents the majority of the shared types and bindings, and is likely the most useful place to look at when learning about the IO boundary between a program and an SDR.
The git repo can be found at github.com/hztools/go-sdr, and is importable as hz.tools/sdr.
This library is designed to look (and in some cases, mirror) the Go io idioms
so that this library feels as idiomatic as it can, so that Go builtins interact
with IQ in a way that’s possible to reason about, and to avoid reinventing the
wheel by designing new API surface. While some of the API looks (and is even
called) the same thing as a similar function in io, the implementation is
usually a lot more naive, and may have unexpected sharp edges such as
concurrency issues or performance problems.
The following IQ types are implemented using the sdr.Samples interface. The
hz.tools/sdr package contains helpers for conversion between types, and some
basic manipulation of IQ streams.
| IQ Format | hz.tools Name | Underlying Go Type |
|---|---|---|
| Interleaved uint8 (rtl-sdr) | sdr.SamplesU8 | [][2]uint8 |
| Interleaved int8 (hackrf, uhd) | sdr.SamplesI8 | [][2]int8 |
| Interleaved int16 (pluto, uhd) | sdr.SamplesI16 | [][2]int16 |
| Interleaved float32 (airspy, uhd) | sdr.SamplesC64 | []complex64 |
The following SDRs have implemented drivers in-tree.
| SDR | Format | RX/TX | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| rtl | u8 | RX | Good |
| HackRF | i8 | RX/TX | Good |
| PlutoSDR | i16 | RX/TX | Good |
| rtl kerberos | u8 | RX | Old |
| uhd | i16/c64/i8 | RX/TX | Good |
| airspyhf | c64 | RX | Exp |
The following major packages and subpackages exist at the time of writing:
| Import | What is it? |
|---|---|
| hz.tools/sdr | Core IQ types, supporting types and implementations that interact with the byte boundary |
| hz.tools/sdr/rtl | sdr.Receiver implementation using librtlsdr. |
| hz.tools/sdr/rtl/kerberos | Helpers to enable coherent RX using the Kerberos SDR. |
| hz.tools/sdr/rtl/e4k | Helpers to interact with the E4000 RTL-SDR dongle. |
| hz.tools/sdr/fft | Interfaces for performing an FFT, which are implemented by other packages. |
| hz.tools/sdr/rtltcp | sdr.Receiver implementation for rtl_tcp servers. |
| hz.tools/sdr/pluto | sdr.Transceiver implementation for the PlutoSDR using libiio. |
| hz.tools/sdr/uhd | sdr.Transceiver implementation for UHD radios, specifically the B210 and B200mini |
| hz.tools/sdr/hackrf | sdr.Transceiver implementation for the HackRF using libhackrf. |
| hz.tools/sdr/mock | Mock SDR for testing purposes. |
| hz.tools/sdr/airspyhf | sdr.Receiver implementation for the AirspyHF+ Discovery with libairspyhf. |
| hz.tools/sdr/internal/simd | SIMD helpers for IQ operations, written in Go ASM. This isn’t the best to learn from, and it contains pure go implemtnations alongside. |
| hz.tools/sdr/stream | Common Reader/Writer helpers that operate on IQ streams. |