Instructor Resources

Digital Wireless Communication:

Physical Layer Exploration Lab using the NI USRP

This Document is for instructors only. Not for students.

Important

Contents
About the Course .................................................................................................................................... 2
Background on EE 371C / EE 381V at UT Austin ................................................................................. 2
Course Syllabus ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Course Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 3
Outline of Experiments ....................................................................................................................... 5
Course Organization ........................................................................................................................... 5
Course Policies .................................................................................................................................... 6
Lecture Outline ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Working with Teaching Assistants .................................................................................................... 11
Additional Information ......................................................................................................................... 11
Lab Setup .............................................................................................................................................. 12
Lab Setup: Hardware ........................................................................................................................ 12
Lab Setup: Software .......................................................................................................................... 13
References ............................................................................................................................................ 17

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About the Course
The laboratory manual was designed for a course that takes an experimental approach to wireless
digital communication. Theory in the classroom is translated directly into practice with the help of
National Instruments’ software defined radio platform consisting of NI-LabVIEW and the NI-USRP RF
transceiver. The emphasis is on physical layer concepts rather than implementation considerations.
The course takes a digital signal processing (DSP) approach to wireless communication. No background
in digital communication is assumed, though it would be helpful. Through the DSP approach, emphasis
is on constructing discrete-time transmitted signals and processing discrete-time received signal. The
DSP approach is taken in most commercial radios thanks to the availability of low cost ADCs and DACs.
From a technical perspective, there are two main design examples: single carrier and multicarrier
transmission. The single carrier transmission uses quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and raised-
cosine pulse-shaping. Over the course of the labs, complexity is added to the receiver design including
functions like detection, channel estimation, frame synchronization, and carrier synchronization. In
later labs, the system is extended to incorporate multicarrier modulation in the form of orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The last lab contains some experiments with coding.
In this section, I provide some background on the course as I teach it at The University of Texas at
Austin (UT Austin). I also provide some tips about how to use the laboratory manual with success in
your course. My course at UT Austin teaches both wireless communication theory (through lectures)
and wireless practice (through the labs). The lab manual could be used in other ways in your course.
For example, it could be used to supplement either a more theoretical course on digital
communication or to ground a course on wireless communication.

Background on EE 371C / EE 381V at UT Austin

The course I teach at UT Austin is called EE 371C - Wireless Communications Laboratory. It is also cross-
listed as EE 381V Wireless Communications Laboratory. EE 371C is an undergraduate course while EE
381V is a graduate course. Each week of the course includes 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of
laboratory time. The students complete homework assignments to test their knowledge of the theory
and prelabs to prepare them for the lab. The course could easily be a 3 or 4 credit course depending on
how much homework is assigned.
Undergraduate students who take EE 371C are assumed to have taken a basic course on probability
and statistics and a course on digital signal processing. Most undergraduates who take the course are
in their junior or senior year. Graduate students that take the EE 381V course are encouraged to have
taken a course on probability and stochastic processes and a course on digital signal processing. Most
graduate students take the course in their first semester. To facilitate different grading in EE 381V and
EE 371C, the graduate students also complete a final term project.
The official description for the course is as follows:

The fundamentals of wireless communication from a digital signal processing perspective;

linear modulation, demodulation, and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing;
synchronization, channel estimation, and equalization; communication in fading channels; and
wireless standards.
The theory part of the course uses my forthcoming textbook on wireless digital communication [1]. I
will be happy to provide a preprint of the textbook before it is published. My lectures notes are

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provided on the CD. The lab part of the course uses this laboratory manual. The labs were developed
and tested over a five year period. More information about the course is available online [2].

Course Syllabus
Here I provide the key information from the syllabus that I use in my course.

Course Title: EE 371C / EE 381V Wireless Communications Laboratory

Lab Sections: [ Put the schedule of the lectures here]

Instructor
[ Put your contact information here including office hours ]
Information:

Teaching Assistant
[ Put your TA contact information here including office hours ]
Information:

Prerequisites: [ List the prerequisites for the undergraduate and graduate versions here ]

Course Introduction
Wireless communication is fundamentally the art of communicating information without wires. In
principle, wireless communication encompasses any number of techniques including underwater
acoustic communication, semaphores, smoke signals, radio communication, and satellite
communication, among others. The term was coined in the early days of radio, fell out of fashion for
about fifty years, and was rediscovered during the cellular telephony revolution. Wireless now implies
communication using electromagnetic waves – placing it squarely within the domain of electrical
engineering. This brings us to the course at hand.
Wireless communication techniques can be classified as either analog or digital. The first commercial
systems were analog including AM radio, FM radio, television, and first generation cellular systems.
Analog communication is rapidly being replaced with digital communication. The fundamental
difference between the two is that in digital communication, the source is assumed to be digital.
Modern applications of digital communication include cellular communication, wireless local area
networking, personal area networking, and high-definition television.
This class approaches wireless communication from the perspective of digital signal processing (DSP).
No background in digital communication is assumed, though it would be helpful. The utility of a DSP
approach is due to the bandlimited nature of wireless systems. Consequently with a high enough
sampling rate, thanks to Nyquist's theorem, it is possible to represent the bandlimited, continuous-
time wireless channel from its samples. This allows us to treat the transmitted signal as a discrete-time
sequence, the channel as a discrete-time linear time-invariant system, and the received signal as a
discrete-time sequence.
In this class we take an experimental approach to wireless digital communication. We will use a
National Instrument's based software-defined radio platform where the radio is software
programmable (in this case with LabVIEW) instead of implemented using hardware. The focus will be
on the design, implementation, evaluation, and iterative optimization of a digital wireless

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communication link. A three-hour laboratory period will complement the usual three-hour lecture
period each week.
This course gives you the unique opportunity to construct a wireless communication link. In doing so,
you will gain practical experience with communication system design that enables you to understand
the link between the mathematical theory of communication and real-world implementation. Key
learning objectives for the course include:
 Define and calculate bit error rates for some common modulation schemes.
 Understand the difference between binary phase shift keying and quadrature phase shift
keying as well as how to implement them.
 Understand the connection between pulse-shaping and sampling.
 Understand how to define excess bandwidth for a raised-cosine pulse.
 Understand how to obtain a sampled channel impulse response from a continuous time
propagation channel.
 Understand how to train and estimate the coefficients of a frequency selective channel.
 Understand the various kinds of synchronization required and how to compensate for different
sources of asynchronicity.
 Explain how to perform equalization using single-carrier frequency domain equalization or
OFDM modulation.
 Justify the use of either zero padding or a cyclic prefix to enable frequency domain
equalization.
 Perform channel estimation and synchronization in an OFDM receiver.
 Explain the key features of the IEEE 802.11a and GSM physical layers to enable channel
estimation, equalization, and synchronization.
 Define two different modes of operation in a MIMO communication system and explain the
difficulty of equalization in fading channels.
 Define small-scale fading and large-scale fading.
 Calculate the coherence time and coherence bandwidth of a channel.
 Create and understand a basic link budget including both small-scale and large-scale fading.
 Understand the principle of frequency reuse in cellular systems and be able to calculation the
signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio.
 Implement everything you learn on our software defined radio platform.
EE 381V Graduate Course Only: Part of the final grade for this course will consist of a final term
project, due at the end of the course. There are three possible term projects, which you can choose
based on your interests:
System Implementation: Here the final deliverable is an implementation of a wireless
communication system of your choice. The idea is that the implementation will deal with
either a different system than we considered in class, or a similar system with enhancements
such as space-time coding, MIMO, or more advanced transceiver design. This project will
require code that is well documented, can be made available online and appropriate written
documentation. Demo and all related code will be turned in.
Survey Paper: Here the final deliverable is a research paper in the format of a journal or
conference paper that provides a survey of a given topic. This project should have a detailed
survey component and a simulation component for full credit. The paper will be graded as a

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 conference / journal paper and should be formatted accordingly. Final project report must be
written in LaTeX. Possible topics include a broad survey of software-defined radio or more
detail surveys of specific areas including synchronization, OFDM, or channel estimation.
Research Paper: Here the final deliverable is a research paper in the format of a journal or
conference paper. This project should contain some element of innovation, even if it is small or
incremental. The paper will be graded as a conference / journal paper and should be formatted
accordingly. Possible topics include efficient filtering, synchronization, implementation
architectures, channel estimation, space-time coding, MIMO, etc. \ broad survey of software-
defined radio or more detail surveys of specific areas including synchronization, OFDM, or
channel estimation.

Outline of Experiments
1. Introduction to LabVIEW and the National Instruments RF Hardware
2. Baseband QAM Modulation
3. Baseband QAM Demodulation
4. Channel Estimation
5. Synchronization
6. Frequency Offset Estimation and Correction
7. OFDM Modulator and Demodulator
8. OFDM Synchronization, Frequency Offset, and Channel Estimation.

Course Organization
The course consists of two lectures per week and a single laboratory session. The lecture will cover the
theory of wireless communication to prepare you for implementation in the lab. Lectures will be
supplemented by homework assignments every couple weeks, consisting of a few problems to test
what you learned in class. The laboratory sessions will consist of two parts: a prelab that you conduct
at home before the lab begins and the lab itself. Doing the prelab ahead of time is very important and
is mandatory for your participation in the lab. After the labs you will summarize your lab findings in lab
reports.

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Course Policies
[ You should modify this based on your course. Having the same prelab due date time for all the labs
prevents people with early lab sections from feeling they are being treated unfairly ].
Prelabs: Every lab session will have prelab that is due at 7pm on Tuesday in the Wireless
Communications Lab, the week for that session. The prelab includes a mixture of problems and
programming to prepare you for that week's experiment. You may work on the prelab with
your lab partner but not with other students but all work must be your own. You may not
participate in the lab without a prelab. Copying another student's prelab is considered cheating
and the appropriate action will be taken. Prelabs, homeworks, tests, and solutions from
previous offerings of this course or offerings of related courses on the Internet are off limits.
Use of these materials will be considered cheating and appropriate action according to the
Academic Dishonesty Policy listed below will be taken. Every lab session will have prelab that is
due at 7pm on Tuesday in the Wireless Communications Lab, the week for that session. The
prelab includes a mixture of problems and programming to prepare you for that week's
experiment. You may work on the prelab with your lab partner but not with other students but
all work must be your own. You may not participate in the lab without a prelab. Copying
another student's prelab is considered cheating and the appropriate action will be taken.
Prelabs, homework, tests, and solutions from previous offerings of this course or offerings of
related courses on the Internet are off limits. Use of these materials will be considered
cheating and appropriate action according to the Academic Dishonesty Policy will be taken.
Due dates and late policy: All prelab assignments will be due at 7pm in the wireless
communications lab on Tuesday. No late prelabs will be accepted as you need to be prepared
for the lab. All homework assignments will be due at 1pm on Friday in the box outside Prof.
Heath's office. Homework received after 1:05pm will count for 50% of the grade you receive
until 1:00pm on Monday when it will be 0. Lab reports are due in your lab section the week
they are due.
Exams: There will be two midterm exams and a final exam based on topics covered in the
lecture and the lab.
Participation: Attendance in the laboratory session is mandatory. Attendance in the lecture is
at your discretion but highly encouraged. There will be frequent surveys on all assignments.
Completion of occasional anonymous surveys is mandatory. Questions and discussion in class
are encouraged. Participation will be noted. Please raise your hand if you would like to respond
to a question.
Messaging: Receiving and placing cellular calls during class is prohibited. Likewise interactive
text messaging, checking email, etc. in class is prohibited unless it relates to a technical matter
at hand with the course.

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 Grading: Note that this course is cross-listed as both an undergraduate and a graduate course.
The graduate course requires a different project. Graduate and undergraduate students are
graded different to maintain fairness according to the schedule below.
Grading EE 371C Undergraduate Course
 10% Homework
 50% Lab
o 30% Lab experiments
o 10% Pre-labs and participation
o 10% Lab Reports
 10% Each midterm exam
 20% Final exam
Grading EE 381V Graduate Course
 10% Homework
 30% Lab
o 20% Lab experiments
o 5% Pre-labs and participation
o 5% Lab Reports
 10% Each midterm exam
 20% Final exam
 20% Final project
Academic Dishonesty: [ Insert a statement appropriate for your academic institution ]
Note about Feedback: Feedback is an important part of any kind of learning. Without feedback
on how well you understand the material, it is more difficult for you to make significant
progress. During this course you will give me feedback on your learning in informal and formal
ways, such as assignments or exams. I want you to let me know when something we discuss is
not clear. This kind of communication will enable me to provide additional information when
needed or to explain a concept in different terms. I care about your performance.
In addition to feedback on your learning, I will ask for feedback from you about how my
teaching strategies are helping or hindering your learning. This kind of feedback is very
important to me as I continually strive to be the best teacher I can be. Some of this feedback
will be gathered from online anonymous surveys. I encourage you to respond to these surveys
so that together we can create an effective teaching and learning environment.

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Lecture Outline
Here I provide the outline for a recent lecture series used for a semester course. Note that Lecture 16
is the last lecture corresponding to material covered in the lab. The duration of the course discusses
wireless standards, propagation, fading, diversity, and MIMO communication. Usually I cover only up
through Lab 8. A course taught on a quarter system schedule would be only ten weeks and thus would
cover through Lab 5. This means that OFDM would be skipped in the lab but there would still be time
to cover it in the lectures.
The theory part of the course uses my forthcoming textbook on wireless digital communication [1]. I
will be happy to provide a preprint of the textbook before it is published. My lectures notes are
provided on the course material CD and more information about the course is available online [2].

Lab
Lecture Topics Distribute to Student Due
Session

Introduction to the wireless

1
communication lab

No Lab
All content from
Session,
<Install media
2 Digital communication overview but go-
root>\labs –
to
student\Lab 1.1\
session

3 Types of signals, stochastic processes

Review of transforms, sampling theorem,

Lab 1, Lab 1.1
4 discrete-time processing of continuous-
Part 1 Prelab
time signals

Frequency response of random signals,

Lab 1.2
5 power spectrum, bandwidth, complex
Prelab
envelope notation

All content from

Up conversion, down conversion,
Lab 1, <Install media
6 complex baseband representation,
Part 2 root>\labs –
complex baseband equivalent channel
student\Lab 2.1\

Quadrature pulse amplitude, modulation,

PAM, QAM, transmit energy, transmit Lab 2.1
7
bandwidth, additive white Gaussian noise Prelab
channels

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 Lab
Lecture Topics Distribute to Student Due
Session

All content from

Optimal pulse shapes for AWGN, Nyquist
Lab 2, <Install media Lab 1
8 pulse shapes, implementing optimal
Part 1 root>\labs – Report
pulse shapes using multi-rate identities
student\Lab 2.2\

Maximum likelihood detection in additive

9
white, probability of error analysis, dB

Sample timing offset, algorithms for Lab 2.2

10
sample timing Prelab

All content from

Narrowband frame synchronization,
Lab 2, <Install media
11 channel estimation, linear least squares
Part 2 root>\labs –
estimation problems
student\Lab 3\

12 Midterm 1

Frequency selective channels, least

13 squares channel estimation, direct least
squares equalizer estimation

All content from

Frequency offset estimation and
<Install media Lab 2
14 correction, introduction to frequency Lab 3
root>\labs – Report
domain equalization, the DFT
student\Lab 4\

Single carrier frequency domain

Lab 4
15 equalization (SC-FDE), OFDM, the cyclic
Prelab
prefix

Lab 3
All content from
Comparison between SC-FDE and OFDM, Report,
<Install media
16 carrier frequency offset estimation and Lab 4 Project
root>\labs –
channel estimation in OFDM Proposals
student\Lab 5\
(graduate)

Lab 5
17 Demystifying the IEEE 802.11a standard
Prelab

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 Lab
Lecture Topics Distribute to Student Due
Session

All content from

<Install media Lab 4
18 Demystifying the original GSM standard Lab 5
root>\labs – Report
student\Lab 6\

Introduction to propagation, large-scale

19
fading, link budgets, path loss

Small-scale fading, coherence time,

Lab 5
20 coherence bandwidth, regions of
Prelab
selectivity, Rayleigh fading

Probability of error in fading channels, All content from

receive diversity, selection diversity and <Install media Lab 5
21 Lab 6
maximum ratio combining, probability of root>\labs – Report
error with diversity student\Lab 7\

22 Midterm #2 No Lab

Sources of diversity, Alamouti space-time Lab 7

23
code, transmit beamforming Prelab

All content from

Introduction to MIMO wireless <Install media Lab 6
24 Lab 7
communication, spatial multiplexing root>\labs – Report
student\Lab 8\

Receivers for spatial multiplexing,

25
performance analysis

Dealing with practical impairments in

Lab 8
26 MIMO communication systems, channel
Prelab
estimation and synchronization

Introduction to MIMO-OFDM, highlights Lab 7

27 Lab 8
of the IEEE 802.11n standard Report

28 Course Review

29 Final Exam

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Working with Teaching Assistants
When I teach the course, I normally have one or two teaching assistants. The number of assistants
required depends on the size of the laboratory session and what else the assistant will help with
(homework grading for example). At UT a typical teaching assistant has a budget of 20 hours of time
per week. In the course, they will typically handle two or three sessions that are of 3 hours in duration.
They will also attend the lectures in the class, hold office hours, and grade the prelabs. When the
semester begins, I meet with the students and go over the general responsibilities. I summarize my list
here.
General responsibilities of wireless lab TAs
 Help create homework and exam problems
 Come up with solutions for assignments (scanned)
 Grade assignments and return promptly within 1 week
 Help grade exams with Professor
 Run weekly lab sessions
 Hold 3 office hours in lab each week
What needs to be done before the first class?
 Get familiar with the lab. Make sure that the PCs in the lab are upgraded to the correct version
of the LabVIEW to match the courseware.
 Make sure all equipment is working.
What typically happens in a given week?
 Collect and grade prelabs. Must be returned 1 day before first lab.
 Run lab session
 Fill out TA checklist and return to me at end of week
 Report students’ grades in lab on Blackboard each week.
 Monitor student checkout and return of cables
 Report malfunctioning equipment immediately
Tasks
 Performing the lab
 Lab grading
 Lab hosting
 Office hours
 Homework grading
 Homework problem creation
 Grade lab reports

Additional Information
Student Groups: In general I have groups of two students complete all the labs. Students have the
same lab partner the whole course. When there are odd numbers there will be a group of three or one

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student will work alone. The course can be completed by students working individually but the
workload with prelabs and lab reports is quite high.

Lab Setup
The following lists the hardware and software requirements for each lab station. Setup / configuration
information follows.
Hardware Requirements
 PC running Windows 7
 Gigabit Ethernet Network Card
 Ethernet Cable (Cat 5e / Cat 6)
 Two NI-2920 USRP Devices
 MIMO Cable
 Two Antennas
 Student Lab Manual
Software Components
 LabVIEW 2009 (or higher) (Student, Full, or Professional)
 NI Modulation Toolkit (Ver 4.3 or higher)
 NI-USRP Driver (Ver 1.0 or higher)
 Student Lab Courseware

Lab Setup: Hardware

PC Performance: PC performance (CPU, memory, etc.) and background processes can play a large role
in the maximum bandwidth / IQ sampling rates that you can expect. The higher IQ sampling rates
suggested in the labs might not be possible on a “slow” PC (e.g. limited memory, older CPU, etc.) The
NI-USRP documentation includes suggestions for improving system performance. Regardless, you will
want to confirm that each lab runs properly on all the lab computers before having the students run
them.
PC / USRP Connections: Each lab station should have two USRPs with connections as shown on Figure
1.
Network Configuration (NI USRPs and the Lab PC): USRP hardware communicates with a host PC on a
local subnetwork using static IP addresses. Although many modern PCs include a built-in Gigabit
network interface, NI recommends that you install a Gigabit Ethernet Network card for each lab PC and
dedicate it for use with the USRP hardware. Doing so will enable lab PCs to maintain a separate
standard network connection to your campus network, Internet, etc.
The host PC network adaptor and each USRP will need to be assigned a unique, static IP address. The
NI-USRP driver includes a Configuration Utility that allows you to set the IP address for your USRP
hardware. Please see the NI-USRP Getting Started Guide for more information about configuring the IP
addresses of the USRPs and the host PC network adaptor.

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Figure 1, USRP connection diagram.
Lab Setup: Software
Finding LabVIEW You will need to provide the students with information about how to access LabVIEW
at your university. At UT Austin, we have a site license so that students can download LabVIEW and can
complete the labs from their own machines. If you do not have a site license, then you need to be sure
LabVIEW is set up in a lab where the students can complete their prelab assignments.
Access to Prelab Code: The best results are achieved for the prelab when the TA is able to run and
grade each student's prelab code prior to the beginning of the lab. To do this you will need some form
of electronic submission. At UT Austin we use the Blackboard courseware that has capability for
electronic submission of code.
Use of the Modulation Toolkit: Part of the experience in the lab is for the students to create core
functions of a digital radio. Of course, many of these functions are already available in the Modulation
Toolkit. You should emphasize that the students should write their code using only basic VIs unless
otherwise mentioned.

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Avoiding Plagiarism: LabVIEW VI Password Protection: Some of the included VIs are password
protected to limit access to the LabVIEW source code (the LabVIEW block diagram). With password
protection enabled, student can run VIs and see the how the transmitter and receiver should operate,
but they cannot see how these VIs are implemented. It is important that the password to unlock the
source VIs remain confidential. If the source is fully available, this could lead to copying by the students
and propagation to other universities. Solutions should not be copied and made available to the
students.

LAB VI PASSWORD: e2ukaga  DO NOT SHARE THIS WITH STUDENTS

After you unlock one VI by entering the correct password, all password-protected
VIs loaded in your current LabVIEW session will be unlocked until that session of
LabVIEW closed / restarted. As such, please confirm that the password-protection
is in effect on all the lab computers before the students work on the labs,
Important otherwise they will be able to see how all of the sub VIs they will eventually need
to write are written.

Lab Content: Folder Organization: Each of the 10 included labs includes the following components:
 Prelab reading, Prelab homework, and lab exercises
 LabVIEW VIs (Virtual Instruments) that correspond to the lab exercises
This content is organized in folders on the courseware installation media as follows:

Folder Name Distribution Folder Contents

\labs - student\Lab # For Students In-lab exercises and associated LabVIEW VIs

\labs - solutions For Instructor Only Lab content answer keys

\utilities For Instructor Only Software utilities for lab setup

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Lab Content: LabVIEW VIs: The lab exercises involve simulation and live signal transmission / reception
related to a complete communication link, with individual labs focusing on sub-components of the link.
To enable the student to explore the sub-components the context of a complete (working) link, each
includes LabVIEW VIs (code) associated with a complete link. The provided VIs for each lab use a
common framework / organization, with copies of the framework provided for each lab.
The folders for Labs 2.1 through 5 include the following content:

LabVIEW File Name Description

simulator.vi Student use this VI prior to the lab to confirm their VIs work in simulation. The
simulator actually operates one level above top_tx.vi and top_rx.vi, calling
each of them, but bypassing all the hardware VIs. The student will use the
simulator to test their code after they have replaced the VIs in transmitter.vi
and receiver.vi with their own.

receiver.vi These VIs handle physical layer processing on the host PC for receive /
transmitter.vi transmit. The VIs can be run immediately to enable the student to experience
correct operation. Students will modify these VIs as part of the lab exercises,
replacing locked sub VIs with their own implementations.

top_rx.vi These top-level VIs invoke receiver.vi, transmitter.vi, and the hardware VIs.
top_tx.vi These will be the VIs used to control the USRP transmitter and USRP receiver
in the lab. For each lab, top_tx.vi and top_rx.vi have been provided with preset
default parameters that you may need to change. See the VI Parameters
section of this document for information regarding how to do so.

.vit extension files Template VIs for the students to use as a starting point for writing their VIs for
each lab. These come with the necessary inputs and outputs already wired up
for the student, leaving the actually algorithms left for them to develop. This
makes things easier for the students without having them miss out on the
important aspects of the VIs they need to write. When they go to save one of
these templates VIs, it will prompt them to give it a different name and it will
automatically change the extension to .vi for them.

digital_comm.llb This LabVIEW library file contains sub VIs (subroutines) used for baseband
processing on the transmitter and receiver. Many of these VIs are password
protected to limit access to the block diagram (LabVIEW source), since the
students will be implementing their own VIs which do the same thing

control_type_defs.llb This LabVIEW library file contains several type def clusters, used to pass most
of the parameters from one VI to the next on the transmitter and receiver

wcl_RF1.0.llb This LabVIEW library file contains sub VIs (subroutines) used to interface with
the USRP hardware.

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For labs 6 through 8, the VI hierarchy is almost exactly the same except some of the VIs have been
renamed to reflect the fact that it is now an OFDM system. So top_ofdm_rx.vi serves the same purpose
as top_rx.vi did in labs 2 through 5. The only other additions are OFDM-specific VIs stored in the
OFDM_comm.llb library and used with the digital_comm.llb VIs from the earlier labs.
Each lab consists of several parts. First, the students should do the pre-lab portion prior to the actual
lab time. The pre-lab usually consists of questions to answer and sub VIs to write, which they should
test in the simulator.vi provided to them) and submit them for grading. If any of the sub VIs do not
operate correctly, the student should be informed and given a second chance to re-write them before
coming into the lab (for reduced credit perhaps). Otherwise it will be impossible for them to complete
the lab. During the actual in-lab portion, the students will first want to run the system of VIs given to
the (with the password-protected sub VIs) to see the proper implementation of the system running on
the hardware. There may be questions for them to answer at this stage. Then they should replace the
sub VIs of receiver.vi and transmitter.vi with all of the ones they have implemented (e.g. in lab 4, they
should replace all of the sub VIs with the ones they have written for lab 1.1, 1.2, 2, 3, and 4). Then they
will run top_tx.vi and top_rx.vi again to confirm that their sub VIs operate correctly when running on
the hardware. There will then be questions to answer and usually a portion of the lab will ask them to
demonstrate to the instructor how the system operates under certain conditions. It is important for
the TA to confirm that this is done with the students' sub VIs and not the password-protected sub VIs
that they start out using. Usually, the students will submit a lab report consisting of answers to all the
questions they have been asked during the lab.
VI Parameters: When configuring each lab station, you will want to set some of the VI parameters
before the students arrive for each lab. We recommend that you configure HW Parameters in top_tx.vi
and top_rx.vi and save your configuration settings as default values. Guidance regarding parameter
choices follows:
Carrier / Center Frequency: Depending on the USRP model you are using (either the USRP-
2920 or USRP-2921), you will have different options for center/carrier frequencies to use in the
lab. It is your responsibility to choose center frequency and bandwidths that comply with your
local wireless spectrum regulations. In North America, you can consider an ISM band such as
902 MHz to 928 MHz frequency range when working with a NI-2920. For NI-2921, you can
consider the ISM band that falls in the 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz frequency range. In addition, we
recommend that you use slightly different carrier frequencies for each USRP pair in the lab.
This will help minimize interference between different stations. For example, you may use 2.4
GHz, 2.42 GHz, 2.42 GHz, etc. for each of the USRP pairs in the lab.
Tx / Rx Gains: While the Tx gain and Rx gain values are specified in dB, the devices are not
calibrated and you may not notice a difference in received signal strength when making small
adjustments to the gain (on transmit or receive).
Capture Duration / Reference Position: reference position is a value in percent that
determines how much of the capture duration should consist of pre-signal data. A reference
position value of 10 is recommended. top_tx.vi displays the length of the packet being
transmitted in seconds when it is transmitting. You should use this information to determine a
proper capture duration and reference position.
Trigger Level: trigger level is a value in volts that the received signal's magnitude must exceed
for it to be determined that a packet was detected. The value will depend on the Tx / Rx gain
settings you choose, the distance between the transmitter antenna and the receiver antenna,
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 any obstructions between the two antennas, and the level of interference from other devices.
trigger level should be determined each week before the students arrive and can be done so a
few different ways. The first is to use the trigger level estimator VI that has been provided,
which will determine a reasonable trigger level to use given the gain settings you select. The
other is to run top_tx.vi and top_rx.vi with different gain and trigger level values manually to
determine the proper level. Even after determining a proper trigger level for each station, it is
possible (and even likely) that each student will need to adjust this value over the course of the
lab.

References
[1] R. W. Heath Jr. Introduction to Wireless Digital Communication: A Signal Processing
Perspective, course notes for EE 371C taught at The University of Texas at Austin.
[2] R. W. Heath Jr. EE 371C / EE 381V: Wireless Communications Lab,
http://www.profheath.org/teaching/ee-371c-ee-381v-wireless-communications-lab, or
http://bit.ly/HeathUSRPLab, accessed September 2011.

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