Tagged: coherent receiver

Feedback Request: New RTL-SDR Product, Ideas and Interest Check

We are considering building a new multi-purpose RTL-SDR product. The idea is to make several difficult to achieve applications and projects much more accessible. We are looking to implement the following ideas:

  • 3x on-board coherent RTL-SDRs built into the PCB
    • 4x SMA inputs: 3x individual inputs, 1x common input (switched between the two). 
    • All RTL-SDRs connected to the same clock source – enables coherent experiments
    • All RTL-SDR feature sets and performance equivalent to RTL-SDR V3 or better
  • On-board noise source and directional coupler
    • Useful for correlation with rtl_coherent
    • Measure filter characteristics, and get rough SWR antenna readings.
  • Noise source able to be switched in and out via silicon switches
    • Useful with rtl_coherent and other coherent experiments for cross correlation timing correction. This allows for accurate direction finding.
  • Ability to mount onto a Raspberry Pi 3, and provide an ESD protected, buffered and filtered output for RpiTX transmissions. (a PCB plugin filter specific to the transmission frequency would need to be installed onto PCB to use this feature)
    • With a filter installed the board can be connected to an antenna and used with RpiTX for simple transmissions.
    • Go portable with an Raspberry Pi 3 compatible HDMI LCD screen and a battery pack. Possible HackRF portapack alternative.

Possible applications:

  • Multi-band RTL-SDR applications
    • One RTL-SDR receiving NOAA, one receiving ADS-B, one scanning the air band.
    • Easy trunk tracking with 2x RTL-SDR. Third RTL-SDR used for something else.
    • One streaming NOAA weather, one scheduled to receive NOAA/Meteor sats and weather balloons, one receiving Outernet weather updates.
  • Coherent applications
    • RF direction finding
    • Passive radar
    • Possible radio astronomy applications?
  • Noise source applications
    • Characterize filters
    • VSWR meter with directional coupler
  • Raspberry Pi mount applications
    • Replay attacks and security analysis of ISM band devices with RpiTX and an ISM band filter.
    • Transmitting WSPR with WSPRpi.
    • Portable if used with a small HDMI screen and battery pack.
    • Possible control of board via an Android app.
    • Similar applications to the HackRF Portapack idea.
    • Multi-band noise locator if a GPS is added to the Pi. e.g. See Tim Havens’ ‘Driveby’ concept.

The idea is still in the concept stages so we’re looking for any feedback from the community to see if this is even something that people would want.

Would a receiver board like this interest anyone? We would also work on providing basic ready to go software on a downloadable image file for the Raspberry Pi 3 so starting an app would be as easy as using a launcher. We would also provide various tutorials as well.

The target price would be $99 USD. If you think this is too much, please let us know what you would expect to pay in the comments.

Are there any additional features that anyone requests? Please let us know in the comments.

Would you pay $99 USD for a 3-input RTL-SDR coherent receiver with built in noise source, antenna switcher and filtered RpiTX output?

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A Multi-Channel Coherent RTL-SDR Product: For Passive Radar, Direction Finding and More

Coherent-receiver.com is a company which is a customer of our RTL-SDR V3 dongle and they have been working on creating a multi-channel coherent receiver product based on the RTL-SDR. An RTL-SDR multi-channel coherent receiver is at its most basic, two or more RTL-SDR dongles (multi-channel) that are running from a single clock source (coherent). A multi-channel coherent receiver allows signal samples from two different antennas to be synchronized against time, allowing for all sorts of interesting applications such as passive radar and direction finding.

The team at coherent-receiver.com have used the new expansion headers on our V3 dongles to create their product. In their receivers they attach a control board which has a buffered 0.1 PPM TCXO (buffered so it can power multiple RTL-SDR’s). They also added an 8-bit register and I2C connection capabilities which allows for control of future add-on boards. The I2C capability is useful because it means that several RTL-SDR dongles can be controlled and tuned from the same control signal. More information on the registers and build of the receiver control board can be seen on their technical support page.

A ten channel RTL-SDR coherent receiver.
A ten channel RTL-SDR coherent receiver.
The Coherent Receiver block diagram.
The Coherent Receiver block diagram.

One example application of a multi-channel coherent receiver is passive radar. Coincidentally, we’ve just seen the release of new GUI based Passive Radar software by Dr. Daniel Michał Kamiński in yesterdays post. Passive radar works by listening for strong signals bouncing off airborne objects such as planes and meteors, and performing calculations on the signals being received by two antennas connected to the multi-channel coherent receiver.

A second example is direction finding experiments. By setting up several antennas connected to a multichannel coherent receiver calculations can be made to determine the direction a signal is coming from. An interesting example of direction finding with three coherent RTL-SDRs can be seen in this previous post. A third example application is pulsar detection which we have seen in this previous post. 

Coherent-receiver.com sent us a prototype unit that they made with four of our V3 dongles. In testing we found that the unit is solidly built and works perfectly. We tested it together with Dr. Kamiński’s passive radar software and it ran well, however we do not have the correct directional antennas required to actually use it as a passive radar yet. In the future we hope to obtain these antennas and test the coherent receiver and the software further.

Currently they do not have pricing for these models as it seems that they are first trying to gauge interest in the product. If you are interested in purchasing or learning more they suggest sending an email to [email protected]. It seems that they are also working on additional RTL-SDR ecosystem products such as filters, downconverters, antennas and LNAs.

We hope that the release of this product and Dr. Kamiński’s software will give a boost to the development of coherent multi-channel receivers as we have not seen much development in this area until recently.

SDRDue running on the coherent-receiver.com unit.
SDRDue running on the coherent-receiver.com unit.