gr-plasma: A New GNU Radio-based Tool for Software-defined Radar
Abstract
A low-cost experimental setup is an invaluable
tool for rapid prototyping of radar signal processing
algorithms. Here, the gr-plasma
out-of-tree module is presented as a convenient
way to collect radar data using UHD-compatible
software-defined radio (SDR) systems. The
module operates entirely over the GNU Radio
message passing interface, packetizing each
pulse received by the radar into a protocol data
unit (PDU) to simplify downstream processing
and minimize latency. It includes blocks for
waveform generation, monostatic transmission
and reception, and data storage, and supports
both CPU and GPU backend processing. All
signal processing functionality in gr-plasma
is an implementation of plasma dsp, a separate
companion library that can also be used for
projects outside the GNU Radio ecosystem. In
this paper, the utility and structure of each block
is discussed, and the results of range-Doppler
processing are shown for data collected with grplasma
and an Ettus X310 in an open-air test.
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