SDRangel is an Open Source Qt5/OpenGL SDR and signal analyzer frontend to various hardware.

Although it keeps the same look and feel as its parent application SDRangelove it is a major redesign from it hitting more than half the lines of the code. Therefore the code base cannot be kept in sync anymore with its parent. It also contains enhancements and major differences. So it should now fly with its own wings and with its own name: SDRangel

Source code

Repository branches

• master: the production branch
• dev: the development branch
• fix: production fixes that can't wait
• legacy: the modified code from the parent application hexameron rtl-sdrangelove before a major redeisign of the code was carried out and sync was lost.

Untested plugins

These plugins come from the parent code base and have been maintained so that they compile but they are not being actively tested:

• Channels:
  • lora
  • tcpsrc (although it has evolved please use the udpsrc plugin instead)

Unsupported plugins

These plugins come from the parent code base and are still present in the source tree but are not part of the build:

• Channels:
  • tetra
• Sample sources:
  • gnuradio
  • osmosdr
  • v4l-msi
  • v4l-rtl

Gnuradio

The Gnuradio plugin source needs extra packages, including liblog4cpp-dev libboost-system-dev gnuradio-dev libosmosdr-dev

If you use your own location for Gnuradio install directory you need to specify library and include locations. Example with /opt/install/gnuradio-3.7.5.1 with the following defines on cmake command line:

-DGNURADIO_RUNTIME_LIBRARIES=/opt/install/gnuradio-3.7.5.1/lib/libgnuradio-runtime.so -DGNURADIO_RUNTIME_INCLUDE_DIRS=/opt/install/gnuradio-3.7.5.1/include

osmosdr

If you use your own location for gr.osmocom install directory you need to specify library and include locations. Example with /opt/install/gr-osmosdr with the following defines on cmake command line:

-DGNURADIO_OSMOSDR_LIBRARIES=/opt/install/gr-osmosdr/lib/libgnuradio-osmosdr.so -DGNURADIO_OSMOSDR_INCLUDE_DIRS=/opt/install/gr-osmosdr/include

v4l*

Use cmake ../ -DV4L-RTL=ON to build the Linux kernel driver for RTL-SDR (Experimental). Needs a recent kernel and libv4l2. Will need extra work to support SDRPlay. Needs cp KERNEL_SOURCE/include/linux/compiler.h /usr/include/linux/ and cp KERNEL_SOURCE/include/uapi/linux/videodev2.h /usr/include/uapi/linux/ and package libv4l-dev.

Supported hardware

Airspy

Airspy is supported through the libairspy library that should be installed in your system for proper build of the software and operation support. Add libairspy-dev to the list of dependencies to install.

If you use your own location for libairspy install directory you need to specify library and include locations. Example with /opt/install/libairspy with the following defines on cmake command line:

-DLIBAIRSPY_LIBRARIES=/opt/install/libairspy/lib/libairspy.so -DLIBAIRSPY_INCLUDE_DIR=/opt/install/libairspy/include

Please note that if you are using a recent version of libairspy (>= 1.0.6) the dynamic retrieval of sample rates is supported. To benefit from it you should modify the plugins/samplesource/airspy/CMakeLists.txt and change line add_definitions(${QT_DEFINITIONS}) by add_definitions("${QT_DEFINITIONS} -DLIBAIRSPY_DYN_RATES"). In fact both lines are present with the last one commented out.

Be also aware that the lower rates (2.5 MS/s or 5 MS/s with modified firmware) are affected by a noise artifact so 10 MS/s is preferable for weak signal work or instrumentation. A decimation by 64 was implemented to facilitate narrow band work at 10 MS/s input rate.

BladeRF

BladeRF is supported through the libbladerf library that should be installed in your system for proper build of the software and operation support. Add libbladerf-dev to the list of dependencies to install.

If you use your own location for libbladeRF install directory you need to specify library and include locations. Example with /opt/install/libbladerf with the following defines on cmake command line:

-DLIBBLADERF_LIBRARIES=/opt/install/libbladeRF/lib/libbladeRF.so -DLIBBLADERF_INCLUDE_DIR=/opt/install/libbladeRF/include

FunCube Dongle

Both Pro and Pro+ are supported with the plugins in fcdpro and fcdproplus respectively. For the Pro+ the band filter selection is not effective as it is handled by the firmware using the center frequency.

The control interface is based on qthid and has been built in the software in the fcdhid library. You don't need anything else than libusb support. Library fcdlib is used to store the constants for each dongle type.

The Pro+ has trouble starting. The sound card interface is not recognized when you just plug it in and start SDRAngel. The workaround is to start qthid then a recording program like Audacity and start recording in Audacity. Then just quit Audacity without saving and quit qthid. After this operation the Pro+ should be recognized by SDRAngel until you unplug it.

HackRF

HackRF is supported through the libhackrf library that should be installed in your system for proper build of the software and operation support. Add libhackrf-dev to the list of dependencies to install. Please note that you will need a recent version (2015.07.2 or 2015.07.1 at least) of libhackrf that supports the sequential listing of devices so you might need to build and install the Github version: https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf.git. Note also that the firmware must be updated to match the library version as per instructions found in the HackRF wiki.

If you use your own location for libhackrf install directory you need to specify library and include locations. Example with /opt/install/libhackrf with the following defines on cmake command line:

-DLIBHACKRF_LIBRARIES=/opt/install/libhackrf/lib/libhackrf.so -DLIBHACKRF_INCLUDE_DIR=/opt/install/libhackrf/include

HackRF is better used with a sampling rate of 4.8 MS/s and above. The 2.4 and 3.2 MS/s rates are considered experimental and are way out of specs of the ADC. You may or may not achieve acceptable results depending on the unit. A too low sampling rate will typically create ghost signals (images) and/or raise the noise floor.

RTL-SDR

RTL-SDR based dongles are supported through the librtlsdr library that should be installed in your system for proper build of the software and operation support. Add librtlsdr-dev to the list of dependencies to install.

If you use your own location for librtlsdr install directory you need to specify library and include locations. Example with /opt/install/librtlsdr with the following defines on cmake command line:

-DLIBRTLSDR_LIBRARIES=/opt/install/librtlsdr/lib/librtlsdr.so -DLIBRTLSDR_INCLUDE_DIR=/opt/install/librtlsdr/include

Plugins for special sample sources

File input

The file input plugin allows the playback of a recorded IQ file. Such a file is obtained using the recording feature. Press F7 to start recording and F8 to stop. The file has a fixed name test.sdriq created in the current directory.

Note that this plugin does not require any of the hardware support libraries nor the libusb library. It is alwasys available in the list of devices as FileSource[0] even if no physical device is connected.

SDRdaemon input

This is the client side of the SDRdaemon server. See the SDRdaemon project in this Github repository. You must specify the address and UDP port to which the server connects and samples will flow into the SDRangel application (default is 127.0.0.1port 9090). It uses the meta data to retrieve the sample flow characteristics such as sample rate and receiveng center frequency.

There is an automated skew rate compensation in place. During rate readjustemnt streaming can be suspended or signal glitches can occur for about one second.

Note that this plugin does not require any of the hardware support libraries nor the libusb library. It is alwasys available in the list of devices as SDRdaemon[0] even if no physical device is connected.

Software build

Ubuntu

Prerequisites for 14.04 LTS

Prerequisite to install Qt5 libraries properly: sudo apt-get install libgles2-mesa-dev

Install cmake version 3:

• sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:george-edison55/cmake-3.x
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get remove cmake (if already installed)
• sudo apt-get install cmake

With newer versions just do:

• sudo apt-get install cmake g++ pkg-config libfftw3-dev libqt5multimedia5-plugins qtmultimedia5-dev qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libqt5opengl5-dev qtbase5-dev libusb-1.0 librtlsdr-dev libboost-all-dev libasound2-dev pulseaudio liblz4-dev
• mkdir build && cd build && cmake ../ && make

librtlsdr-dev is in the universe repo. (utopic 14.10 amd64.)

Mint

Tested with Cinnamon 17.2. Since it is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS pleae follow instructions for this distribution (paragraph just above).

Debian

For any version of Debian you will need Qt5.

Debian 7 "wheezy" uses Qt4. Qt5 is available from the "wheezy-backports" repo, but this will remove Qt4. Debian 8 "jessie" uses Qt5.

For Debian Jessie or Stretch:

sudo apt-get install cmake g++ pkg-config libfftw3-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libusb-dev qt5-default qtbase5-dev qtchooser libqt5multimedia5-plugins qtmultimedia5-dev qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libqt5opengl5-dev qtbase5-dev librtlsdr-dev libboost-all-dev libasound2-dev pulseaudio

mkdir build && cd build && cmake ../ && make

openSUSE

This has been tested with the bleeding edge "Thumbleweed" distribution:

sudo zypper install cmake fftw3-devel gcc-c++ libusb-1_0-devel libqt5-qtbase-devel libQt5OpenGL-devel libqt5-qtmultimedia-devel libqt5-qttools-devel libQt5Network-devel libQt5Widgets-devel boost-devel alsa-devel pulseaudio liblz4 liblz4-devel

Then you should be all set to build the software with cmake and make as discussed earlier.

• Note1 for udev rules: installed udev rules for BladeRF and HackRF are targetted at Debian or Ubuntu systems that have a plugdev group for USB hotplug devices. This is not the case in openSUSE. To make the udev rules file compatible just remove the GROUP parameter on all lines and change MODE parameter to 666.
• Note2: A package has been created (thanks Martin!), see: sdrangel. It is based on the 1.0.1 release.

Fedora

This has been tested with Fedora 23 and 22:

• sudo dnf groupinstall "C Development Tools and Libraries"
• sudo dnf install mesa-libGL-devel
• sudo dnf install cmake gcc-c++ pkgconfig fftw-devel libusb-devel qt5-qtbase-devel qt5-qtmultimedia-devel qt5-qttools-devel boost-devel pulseaudio alsa-lib-devel liblz4 liblz4-devel

Then you should be all set to build the software with cmake and make as discussed earlier.

• Note for udev rules: the same as for openSUSE applies. This is detailed in the previous paragraph for openSUSE.

Manjaro

Tested with the 15.09 version with LXDE desktop (community supported). The exact desktop environment should not matter anyway. Since Manjaro is Arch Linux based prerequisites should be similar for Arch and all derivatives.

sudo pacman -S cmake pkg-config fftw qt5-multimedia qt5-tools qt5-base libusb boost boost-libs pulseaudio lz4

Then you should be all set to build the software with cmake and make as discussed earlier.

• Note1 for udev rules: the same as for openSUSE and Fedora applies.
• Note2: A package has been created in the AUR (thanks Mikos!), see: sdrangel-git. It is based on the 205fee6 commit of 8th December 2015.

Windows

Introduction, limitations, warnings...

This is new in version 1.1.3 and also experimental. Use at your own risk! This may or may not work on your machine and version of Windows. It was tested more or less successfully in native Windows 7, 8 and 10 however it does not work in a Virtualbox guest supposedly because it uses OpenGL ES 2.0 instead of the OpenGL desktop version (OpenGL 4.3) when it is running native and I think the OpenGL code in SDRangel is still not quite right to be compatible with the ES version (use of QtGLWidget instead of QtOpenGLWidget).

You should take note that the Windows scheduler is just a piece of crap and not suitable for near real time applications like SDRs. If you encounter any problem just grab a Linux installation CD or .iso file and get yourself a decent OS first. You have been warned!

There is no plug-in to interface to BladeRF hardware due to the complexity of building libbladerf for Windows.

The SDRdaemon plug-in does not work correctly mainly due to the fact that it needs an OS with a decent scheduler and Windows is definitely not this sort of OS (see my previous warning). This plug-in cannot rely on the pace of incoming UDP packets so it will use a timer (QTimer) to get the right pace for the given sample rate. Since the timing is not reliable on Windows this translates into a large read/write drift on the incoming data buffer (watch the buffer gauges in the GUI) and eventually the read pointer walks over the buffer tail or head which is the same since it is a circular buffer. If you can't live with this drift you will have to experiment with the auto read/write balance (B button in the GUI) and your mileage may vary in some cases it can even crash (Pipo-X8 with Windows 8).

Build environment

You will have to use QtCreator and its environment for that purpose. Build was done with the Desktop_Qt_5_5_1_MinGW_32bit tool-chain. Some other flavors might work. Please refer to Qt documentation for Qt Creator details.

You will need to add CONFIG+=MINGW32 to the qmake options. In QtCreator open the Projects menu (the file icon on the left bar) and in the Build steps section open the qmake details collapsed section (click on the caret icon). Choose the build configuration for which you run the build (debug or release) and add CONFIG+=MINGW32 to the Additional arguments line.

Dependencies

Boost

You only really need the Boost headers so there is no need to compile Boost itself. Just download an archive from the Boost website and unpack it somewhere. In our example it will be installed in D:\boost_1_58_0.

You then need to update the .pro files that depend on Boost. They are:

• sdrbase\sdrbase.pro
• plugins\channel\chanalyzer\chanalyzer.pro

Just update the following line with the location of your Boost installation:

• CONFIG(MINGW32):INCLUDEPATH += "D:\boost_1_58_0"

USB support (libusb)

You have to download an archive of libusb that supports MinGW32 from the following location. You will have the choice among various versions and various archive formats in each version folder. It works with version 1.0.19 and is untested with later version(s). In our example it will be installed in D:\libusb-1.0.19.

You then need to update the .pro files that depend on libusb. They are:

• libairspy\libairspy.pro
• libhackrf\libhackrf.pro
• librtlsdr\librtlsdr.pro

Just update the following lines with the location of your libusb installation:

• CONFIG(MINGW32):INCLUDEPATH += "D:\libusb-1.0.19\include\libusb-1.0"
• CONFIG(MINGW32):LIBS += -LD:\libusb-1.0.19\MinGW32\dll -llibusb-1.0

Airspy library (libairspy)

Download the source code or clone the git repository somewhere. It our example it will be installed in D:\softs\libairspy. Copy the header files (*.h) from D:\softs\libairspy\libairspy\src to the directory above (D:\softs\libairspy\libairspy).

You then need to update the .pro files that depend on libairspy. They are:

• libairspy\libairspy.pro. Update the following line with the location of your libiarspy installation:
  • CONFIG(MINGW32):LIBAIRSPYSRC = "D:\softs\libairspy\libairspy"
• plugins\samplesource\airspy\airspy.pro. Update the following line with the location of your libiarspy installation:
  • CONFIG(MINGW32):LIBAIRSPYSRC = "D:\softs\libairspy"

HackRF library (libhackrf)

Download the source code or clone the git repository somewhere. It our example it will be installed in D:\softs\hackrf. Copy the header files (*.h) from D:\softs\hackrf\host\libhackrf\src to the directory above (D:\softs\hackrf\host\libhackrf).

You then need to update the .pro files that depend on libhackrf. They are:

• libhackrf\libhackrf.pro. Update the following line with the location of your libhackrf installation:
  • CONFIG(MINGW32):LIBHACKRFSRC = "D:\softs\hackrf\host\libhackrf"
• plugins\samplesource\hackrf\hackrf.pro. Update the following line with the location of your libhackrf installation:
  • CONFIG(MINGW32):LIBHACKRFSRC = "D:\softs\hackrf\host"

RTL-SDR library (librtlsdr)

Download the source code or clone the git repository somewhere. It our example it will be installed in D:\softs\librtlsdr.

You then need to update the .pro files that depend on librtlsdr. They are:

• librtlsdr\librtlsdr.pro. Update the following line with the location of your librtlsdr installation:
  • CONFIG(MINGW32):LIBRTLSDRSRC = "D:\softs\librtlsdr"
• plugins\samplesource\rtlsdr\rtlsdr.pro. Update the following line with the location of your librtlsdr installation:
  • CONFIG(MINGW32):LIBRTLSDRSRC = "D:\softs\librtlsdr"

Build

Basically you open the project in QtCreator by selecting the sdrangel.windows.pro file in the source root directory and run the build command from the menu. This will eventually produce the sdrangel.exe executable and dependent library and plug-in DLLs in various parts of the build directory. See the Installation paragraph next for details on installing all files in a single place.

Installation

Then comes the tedious part of packaging everything in a single place so that you will just have to click on sdrangel.exe in the file explorer to start. Please follow the next steps for this purpose.

• Make yourself an installation directory say D:\Programs\sdrangel
• Assume the build directory is D:\development\build-sdrangel.windows-Desktop_Qt_5_5_1_MinGW_32bit-Release (assuming you compiled SDRangel for release)
• Assume the source directory is D:\development\sdrangel
• From the Qt group in the Windows start menu select the Qt 5.5 for Desktop (Mingw... console box
• In this console type: bin\windeployqt.exe --dir D:\Programs\sdrangel D:\development\build-sdrangel.windows-Desktop_Qt_5_5_1_MinGW_32bit-Release\app\release\sdrangel.exe D:\development\build-sdrangel.windows-Desktop_Qt_5_5_1_MinGW_32bit-Release\sdrbase\release\sdrbase.dll
• This copies all dependencies for Qt but alas nothing from our software so you will have to do this yourself. In the same console cd to the root of the build directory and type:
  • D:\development\sdrangel\windows.install.bat release D:\Programs\sdrangel
  • use debug in the place of release if you built the debug version

Running

You will need to install Zadig to get USB support for hardware devices. Please refer to Zadig website for details. Basically if you get things working for SDR# or HDSDR then it will work with SDRangel.

Software installation on Linux flavours

Simply do make install or sudo make install depending on you user rights on the target installation directory. On most systems the default installation directory is /usr/local a custom installation directory can be specified with the -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=... option on the cmake command line as usual with cmake.

You can uninstall the software with make uninstall or sudo make uninstall from the build directory (it needs the install_manifest.txt file in the same directory and is automatically created by the make installcommand). Note that this will not remove the possible empty directories.

Known Issues

• The message queuing model supports a n:1 connection to an object (on its input queue) and a 1:1 connection from an object (on its output queue). Assuming a different model can cause insidious disruptions.
• As the objects input and output queues can be publicly accessed there is no strict control of which objects post messages on these queues. The correct assumption is that messages can be popped from the input queue only by its holder and that messages can be pushed on the output queue only by its holder.
• Objects managing more than one message queue (input + output for example) do not work well under stress conditions. Output queue removed from sample sources but this model has to be revised throughout the application.

Limitations

• Tabbed panels showing "X0" refer to the only one selected device it is meant to be populated by more tabs when it will support more than one device possibly Rx + Tx.

Features

Changes from SDRangelove

See the v1.0.1 first official relase release notes

To Do

• Allow the handling of more than one device at the same time. For Rx/Tx devices like the BladeRF Rx and Tx appear as two logical devices with two plugin instances and a common handler for the physical device services both plugins. This effectively opens Tx support.
• Tx channels
• Possibility to connect channels for example Rx to Tx or single Rx channel to dual Rx channel supporting MI(MO) features like 360 degree polarization detection.
• Specialize plugins into channel and sample source plugins since both have almost complete different requirements and only little in common
• 32 bit samples for the Channel Analyzer
• Enhance presets management (Edit, Move, Import/Export from/to human readable format like JSON).
• Headless mode based on a saved configuration in above human readable form
• Allow arbitrary sample rate for channelizers and demodulators (not multiple of 48 kHz). Prerequisite for polyphase channelizer
• Implement polyphase channelizer
• Level calibration
• Even more demods ...

Developper's notes

Build options

The release type can be specified with the -DBUILD_TYPE cmake option. It takes the following values:

• RELEASE (default): produces production release code i.e.optimized and no debug symbols
• RELEASEWITHDBGINFO: optimized with debug info
• DEBUG: unoptimized with debug info

You can specify whether or not you want to see debug messages printed out to the console with the -DDEBUG_OUTPUT cmake option:

• OFF (default): no debug output
• ON: debug output

You can add -Wno-dev on the cmake command line to avoid warnings.

Code organization

At the first subdirectory level indclude and sdrbase contain the common core components include and source files respectively. They are further broken down in subdirectories corresponding to a specific area:

• audio contains the interface with the audio device(s)
• dsp contains the common blocks for Digital Signal Processing like filters, scope and spectrum analyzer internals
• gui contains the common Graphical User Interface components like the scope and spectrum analyzer controls and display
• plugin contains the common blocks for managing plugins
• settings contains components to manage presets and preferences
• util contains common utilities such as the message queue

The plugins subdirectory contains the associated plugins used to manage devices and channel components. Naming convention of various items depend on the usage and Rx (reception side) or Tx (transmission side) affinity. Transmission side is yet to be created.

• Receiver functions (Rx):
  • samplesource: Device managers:
    • xxx : Device manager (e.g. xxx = airspy)
      • xxxinput.h/cpp : Device interface
      • xxxgui.h/cpp : GUI
      • xxxplugin.h/cpp : Plugin interface
      • xxxsettings.h/cpp : Configuration manager
      • xxxthread.h/cpp : Reading samples
      • xxx.pro : Qt .pro file for Windows/Android build
  • channel: Channel handlers:
    • demodxxx : Demodulator internal handler (e.g xxx = demodam)
      • xxxdemod.h/cpp : Demodulator core
      • xxxdemodgui.h/cpp : Demodulator GUI
      • xxxplugin.h/cpp : Plugin interface
      • demodxxx.pro : Qt .pro file for Windows/Android build
    • xxxanalyzer : Analyzer internal handler (e.g xxx = channel)
      • xxxanalyzer.h/cpp : Analyzer core
      • xxxanalyzergui.h/cpp : Analyzer GUI
      • xxxanalyzerplugin.h/cpp : Analyzer plugin manager
      • xxxanalyzer.pro : Qt .pro file for Windows/Android build
    • xxxsrc : Interface to the outside (e.g xxx = udp):
      • xxxsrc.h/cpp : Inteface core
      • xxxsrcgui.h/cpp : Interface GUI
      • xxxsrcplugin/h/cpp : Interface plugin manager
      • xxxsrc.pro : Qt .pro file for Windows/Android build