DonsDeals Blog: HackRF - Transmit and Receive - A single software radio platform can be used to implement virtually any wireless technology (Bluetooth, GSM, ZigBee, etc.)

Software Defined Radio's are very interesting to me. I have been watching their development for a while now and this Project looks to be a big step forward. I hope to learn more and be able to try this out for my self, soon...

Don

Introducing HackRF

I'd like to take a moment to properly introduce the project that is consuming most of my time this year: HackRF, a software radio peripheral. Software radio or Software Defined Radio (SDR) is the application of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) to radio waveforms. It is analogous to the software-based digital audio techniques that became popular a couple of decades ago. Just like a sound card in a computer digitizes audio waveforms, a software radio peripheral digitizes radio waveforms. It's like a very fast sound card with the speaker and microphone replaced by an antenna. A single software radio platform can be used to implement virtually any wireless technology (Bluetooth, GSM, ZigBee, etc.).
Digital audio capabilities in general purpose computers enabled a revolution in the sound and music industries with advances such as hard disk recording and MP3 file sharing. Today's computers are fast enough to process radio waveforms in similar ways, and the radio communications industry is going through the same sorts of changes. One critical advance has yet to take place, and that is the availability of low cost tools enabling any computer user to take part in the revolution.
HackRF project goals:

transmit and receive
operating frequency: 100 MHz to 6 GHz
maximum sample rate: 20 Msps
resolution: 8 bits
interface: High Speed USB
power supply: USB bus power
portable
open source hardware and software
low cost

There have been some exciting developments in the world of low cost software radio hardware in recent months, but the HackRF project will go much further. A key advance will be the ability to transmit as well as receive radio signals, and HackRF will also enable operation at higher frequencies, including the popular 2.4 GHz band. Most importantly, HackRF is an open source project, so people will always be able to use and modify the hardware design and software in the future. We are being very careful to only use electronic components with published documentation (no NDAs!) and to avoid software libraries without open source licenses. This means more work for us, but we think that it will be worth it in the long run.
Read More...
http://ossmann.blogspot.com/2012/06/introducing-hackrf.html

HackRF - Transmit and Receive - A single software radio platform can be used to implement virtually any wireless technology (Bluetooth, GSM, ZigBee, etc.)