gr-pdw: An OOT Module for Pulse Descriptor Word (PDW) Generation

Abstract

Characterization of pulsed waveforms results in
measurements commonly referred to as pulse
descriptor words (PDW). PDWs are often utilized
for radar sensor characterization, identification,
and emulation. Pulse measurements are
typically provided as an option on high-SWaP,
high-cost laboratory test equipment or as custom
FPGA firmware which is not easily scalable
to multiple SDR/RF platforms. gr-pdw is
an out-of-tree (OOT) module for GNU Radio developed
by GTRI that performs pulse detection
and PDW generation. The intention is that grpdw
provides the ability for any commercial-offthe-
shelf (COTS) SDR to perform PDW measurements.
Currently it is capable of measuring
pulse width, power, frequency, and time-ofarrival
(ToA), and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
gr-pdw also provides blocks for writing PDWs to
an HDF5 formatted log file and visualizing measurements
in GNU Radio Companion. Testing
has been performed with a USRP B210 in both
laboratory and field settings with measurements
comparable to currently used PDW generators.