3 ms·
Sparse Array Beamforming with a Phase Coherent 21-Channel RTL-SDR Array
- mindcrime 5y agoRadio Direction Finding came up the other day, and that's one of the uses for something like this. Along the same lines, there is a project out there to provide an "off the shelf" coherent RTL-SDR receiver array: https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/krakensdr That being the successor to KerberosSDR: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ksdr/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ksdr/ Looking forward to getting my hands on a KrakenSDR later this year, hopefully.
- syedkarim 5y agoLater this year is a possibility. The (hopefully) final prototype is currently being built. We already have stock of the long-lead time components (TCXO, R820,RTL2832U), and the updated software is already working. The only downside is that the initial production run will be for only 1000 units.
- mindcrime 5y agoNice. I imagine it's early to be asking this, but any (approximate) idea how much the KrakenSDR units will sell for?
- syedkarim 5y agoWe are trying really hard to keep it at $299.
- KirillPanov 5y agoI would totally buy one. Does your project have an RSS feed anywhere? All I can find is CrowdSupply's "email me" form, which is basically an invitation for them to spam me about ten jillion other crowdfunds that I am not interested in. Your project would get lost in the noise.
- syedkarim 5y agoI didn't realize they were generally spammy and not limiting updates to just the single, subscribed projects. These are the other places related to KerberosSDR/KrakenSDR: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=90f27fc05d6086e3528d5d3b8f04e1b2 https://www.rtl-sdr.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=90f27fc0... https://www.facebook.com/groups/235979877597815/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/235979877597815/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/krakensdr/ https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/krakensdr/
- op00to 5y agoVery excited to hear things are moving!
- matttrotter 5y agoGreat work. Back when I worked on DFing, ESPRIT was my favorite estimation algorithm. If I remember right, it was slightly less accurate but much more efficient than MUSIC.
- madengr 5y agoWhy would DOA beamforming need a dense array anyway, if you are looking at the phase front? VLBI arrays are extremely sparse, which is fine with strong signals as a large aperture is not needed. Dense arrays are needed to suppress grating lobes, and I’d think that would be more of an issue when amplitude discrimination is needed.
- supperburg 5y agoYears ago I saw an interview with the guy who founded this website. It was at some ham meetup. I have looked around and can’t find that interview anymore. It was originally on YouTube… does anyone know the video I’m talking about? He specifically talks about learning that you can do anything you put your mind to after his MIT Phd.
- syedkarim 5y agoCarl's PhD is from the University of Auckland.
- avian 5y agoTo me the most interesting part of the paper was how they synchronize the streams from multiple receivers (they inject a common noise signal to all receivers and then align the individual streams using cross-correlation). > It was also observed that the relative phases of the signal streams drift slowly during the operation. This is an interesting observation. If they are running all RF PLLs from a common reference clock, and the PLLs remain locked, there shouldn't be any long-term drift.