2014 6th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT)
Designing the MIMO SDR-based LPD Transceiver
for Long-range Robot Control Applications
Grigoriy Fokin, Dmitry Volgushev, Artem Kireev, Danil Bulanov, Vladimir Lavrukhin
Research and Education Center for Wireless Communications
The Bonch-Bruevich Saint Petersburg University of Telecommunications
Saint Petersburg, Russia
lavrukhin@sut.ru
Abstract— There is a huge growth in robot control
applications over the past years. One of the main challenges in
such applications is the radio link between a control point and a
robot. To improve the range of the link most available control
systems use 433 MHz Low Power Devices (LPD) band for
communication. Required distance between a robot and control
point for our application is 10 km. Achieving this distance is a
challenge when multipath propagation is present. Our Matlab
simulation demonstrates that 2*2 Multiple Input Multiple
Output (MIMO) Alamouti scheme allows to gain more than
10 dB comparing with Single Input Single Output (SISO). Link
budget calculations show that we can achieve even more than
10 km distance using 2*2 MIMO scheme. High precision Agilent
hardware and SystemVue software were used for performance
evaluation of the radio link and system architecture. To
prototype the system we used USRP B210 Software Defined
Radio (SDR) hardware due to huge variety of supportive
platforms and convenient type of connectivity.
Keywords— SDR, 433 MHz, LPD, MIMO 2*2, Robot control
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper describes the current University research and
development (R&D) project. The main goal of the project is to
develop the 2x2 MIMO SDR-based 10 km distance
transceiver in the 433 MHz ISM UHF frequency band.
Current research activity analysis has shown the absence
of available MIMO SDR-based long-range transceivers in 433
MHz ISM UHF band. That is why this field of R&D appears
to be quite perspective. Most of existing 433 MHz band
transceivers have a discrete component design. But we use the
SDR solution to make the cognitive radio design possible in
the future.
A small section of the ISM 70-cm band near 433 MHz is
available for license exempt wireless communication using
low power devices (LPDs) [1], also called short-range devices
(SRDs) [2].
We use Ettus Research B210 Universal Software Radio
Peripheral (USRP) hardware to achieve 10 km range for low
rate telemetry exchange in robot control applications. Such a
telemetry system requires only several kbps data rate to
control the robot movement and has to be zero tolerant to
information errors and losses [4].
978-1-4799-5291-5/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
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In this paper we show that by using dual-antenna transmit
diversity techniques based on Alamouti Space-Time Block
Coding (STBC) [3] telemetry exchange can be performed
reliably.
To assess the performance of the given system we used
intensive simulations to evaluate BER for MIMO 2x2
Alamouti scheme that is intended to achieve 10 km range.
Then we defined Eb/N0 threshold value and compute radio link
budget. To verify the system performance we developed a
testbed based on Agilent hardware and software. It offers a
real time visualization of the signal travelling through the
radio channel.
This paper is organized as follows. In the Section II we
present an analysis of commercially available SDR solutions
and a short overview of Ettus Research B210 hardware
capabilities. Section III describes the simulations to evaluate
bit error probability for MIMO 2x2 Alamouti scheme. Section
IV contains Radio Link Budget calculation. Section V
describes the Agilent testbed used for performance evaluation
of the radio link. Section VI shows USRP B210 board design
and implementation of MIMO 2x2 Alamouti scheme. The last
two sections present a future work and conclusion.
II. SDR HARDWARE ANALYSIS
There are only few commercially available MIMO SDR
solutions in the world (Table 1). Most of the hardware has a
2*2 MIMO transceiver. Supported frequency range is wide
enough for our aim. All the boards support 433 MHz LPD
band and have a bandwidth of tens MHz. The given hardware
has the similar technical characteristics. Therefore to
prototype the system we have chosen the most popular and
supportive Ettus Research USRP B210 platform.
USRP B210 has two receive chains and two transmit
chains [5]. It uses Analog Devices RFIC AD9361 single chip
direct conversion transceiver as an integrated RF frontend. It
is a cost-effective experimentation platform. B210 uses both
signal chains of the AD9361 providing coherent MIMO
capability, which makes it possible to develop MIMO 2x2
Alamouti scheme using the common USRP Hardware Driver
(UHD) framework.
UHD is an open source, cross platform driver that can run
on Windows, Linux and Mac OS. It provides a common API
 2014 6th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT)

that is used by several software frameworks such as GNU and then a modified version of these symbols in the second
Radio [6]. symbol period.

TABLE I. AVAILABLE MIMO SDR SOLUTIONS

Frequency Noise
Name (Vendor) MIMO Range, Figure, FPGA
MHz dB
Maveriq™ Xilinx Spartan 6
2*2 100 — 6000 8
(Epiq Solutions) LX150T
bladeRF x40 40KLE Altera
2*2 300 — 3800 n/a
(Nuand) Cyclone 4 E
bladeRF x40 115KLE Altera
2*2 300 — 3800 n/a
(Nuand) Cyclone 4 E
ASR-2300
2*2 400 — 3800 n/a Xilinx Spartan 6
(Loctronix)
AD-FMCOMMS3-
EBZ 2*2 70 — 6000 <2,5 none
(Analog Devices)
USRP B210 Xilinx Spartan 6
2*2 70 — 6000 <8
(Ettus Research) XC6SLX150

The onboard signal processing and control of AD9361 is

performed by Spartan6 XC6SLX150 FPGA connected to a
host PC using SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface. Fig. 1. MIMO System Concept

Two consecutive symbols x1 and x2 are encoded with the

III. MIMO 2X2 SIMULATION following space-time codeword matrix [3]:
Multipath fading is a significant problem in radio
communications. When the signal power drops dramatically,
the channel is in a fade condition, which leads to high bit error ª º
x −x *2 »
X =« 1
rates (BER).
(2)
MIMO technology significantly improves the link « x x1* »¼
performance and reliability, especially in non-line-of-sight 433 ¬ 2
MHz robot control application environment.
Under the assumption that the channel experienced by
Utilizing multiple element antennas (MEAs) both on
each transmit antenna is flat fading and independent from the
transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) sides of the communication
channel experienced by other transmit antenna, each
link reveals exploitation possibility of both transmit and
transmitted symbol in (1) gets multiplied by a randomly
receive diversity schemes which yields a high quality of
Rayleigh varying complex number hij which is assumed to
reception in terms of BER with a simple maximum likelihood
remain constant over two symbol periods:
(ML) decoding algorithm.
Let us evaluate the performance of MIMO 2x2 Alamouti
coding scheme with BPSK signal modulation in the case of
slow Rayleigh fading channels when we have perfect
ª y11 º ª h11 h12 º ª n11 º
« 1» « « »
knowledge of the channel at the receiver.
« y 2 » = « h 21 h 22 » ª x1 º « n12 »
» +
» «¬ x 2 »¼ « n12* »
The functional diagram of the system is shown in Fig. 1. (3)
This system consists of a transmitter (Tx) and a Receiver (Rx). « y12* » « h12*
−h11 *

Each of devices includes two antennas. There is a wireless « 2* » « * » « 2* »

channel between Tx and Rx. The relationship between the Tx
and Rx is given by (1).
y=Hx+n
where y is a received signal vector, x is a transmitted signal
vector, H is the complex channel matrix and n is a noise
vector [12].
The Alamouti coding scheme involves a space-time block
which has a pair of symbols sent in the first symbol period,
¬ y 2 ¼ ¬ h 22 − h *21 ¼ ¬n 2 ¼
where y11 and y21 are the received information at 1st symbol
period on 1st and 2nd receive antenna respectively; y12 and y22
(1) are the received information at 2nd symbol period on 1st and 2nd
receive antenna respectively; hij is the channel from ith receive
antenna to jth transmit antenna; n11 and n21 are the noise at 1st
symbol period on 1st and 2nd receive antenna respectively; n12
and n22 are the noise at 2nd symbol period on 1st and 2nd receive
antenna respectively.
The diversity analysis is based on ML signal detection at
the receiver side. Complex orthogonality of the Alamouti code

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 2014 6th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT)

in (2) allows to simplify the ML receiver structure. Matlab 2*2 MIMO Alamouti transceiver for a 10 km distance is
simulation was executed [7]. Figure 2 shows the MIMO 2x2 feasible.
Alamouti STBC performance in terms of BER.

Fig. 3. Pathloss versus distance

Fig. 2. BER plot for 2 transmit 2 receive Alamouti STBC

It is shown in figure 2 that the BER performance for 2 TABLE II. RADIO LINK BUDGET CALCULATION
receive Alamouti STBC is much better than 1 receive case. # Radio link budget parameter Denotation Value, dB
For BER=0.0001 required (Eb/N0)req =10 dB (line 14 in 1 Transmitter power (dBW) Pt -20
table II). 2 Tx antenna gain (dBi) [10] Gt 12
3 EIRP (dBW) EIRP -8
4 Pathloss (dB) LS 150
IV. RADIO LINK BUDGET 5 RIP (dBW) RIP 158
We calculated the radio link budget (table II). 6 Rx antenna gain (dBi) [11] Gr 6
7 Received power (dBW) Pr -152
Main loss contribution in the radio link is path loss that 8 Noise figure (dB) F 8
was determined using Okumura-Hata Model [8] and plotted in 9 Noise temperature (Ʉ) T = 1540 K
Fig 3. We have chosen Ls = 150 dB (line 4 in table II) as an 10 Noise spectral density (dBW/Hz) N0 -197
operating point for rural area, because this is a primary area 11 Received Pr/N0 (dB-Hz) Pr/N0 45
for our robot control application. 12 Bitrate (dB-bit/s) R = 1,2 kbps 31
13 Operating (Eb/N0)oper (dB) (Eb/N0)oper 14
Hardware gains include B210 transmitter power 14 Required (Eb/N0)oper (dB) (Eb/N0)req 10
Pt = -20 dBW (10 mW) (line 1 in table II), selected Tx antenna 15 Margin 4
gain Gt = 12 dBi [10], selected Rx antenna gain
Gr = 6 dBi [11]. V. AGILENT PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
To verify the simulated 2*2 MIMO Alamouti system and
Hardware losses include B210 receiver noise figure
evaluate the system architecture we use our laboratory
F = 8 dB (line 8 in table II). Noise temperature [9] is
facilities. The laboratory complex consists of two vector signal
computed according to T = (F-1)·290 = 1540 K (line 9 in
generators, two spectrum analyzers, channel emulator and
Table II). Noise power spectral density is computed according
SystemVue software.
to N0 = k·T = -197 dBW/Hz (line 10 in Table II), where k is
Boltzmann constant. SystemVue is an electronic design automation
environment for electronic system-level design. It works
Bitrate required for robot control application telemetry together with measurement equipment. It is possible to upload
transmission is set to R = 1,2 kbps (line 12 in Table II). It is the simulated signals from software into the vector generator
enough for transmitting a simple movement control
or channel emulator and to play signal on the given radio
commands, e.g. right, left, accelerate, stop.
frequency. The channel emulator has several built-in radio
Operating (Eb/N0)oper value is defined from Pr/N0 value effects: calibrated additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN),
according to (Eb/N0)oper = Pr/N0/R (line 13 in Table II). fading, multipath and Doppler. These options give us a unique
opportunity to simulate the radio channel and move closer to
Communication system feasibility in terms of link margin the real radio channel in highly dynamic changing
(line 15 in Table II) considering (Eb/N0)req point on the BER environment. Therefore algorithms and architecture of the
curve is defined according to designing device can be tested before first prototype is made.
It helps to find bugs in algorithms and optimized parameters
M = EIRP + Gr – (Eb/N0)req –R – N0 – L0 (4) on early stages of design process.

Resulting radio link budget margin is positive (line 15 in

table II) which means that designed 433 MHz LPD

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 2014 6th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT)
Fig. 4. Test-bed functional diagram; MXG – vector generator, EXA – spectrum analyzer, PXB – channel emulator, VSA – software for vector analyze, VSA files
– recorded signal
The general conception of the performance evaluation of
the radio link and system architecture, consist of three steps.
Fig. 4 shows realization of this conception.
The first step is modeling the system architecture of the
future device in SystemVue software. It provides the
simulated signal, which will be very similar to the signal in the
real physical device. It is possible to check the performance of
algorithms and plot the following characteristic: constellation
diagram, BER, eye diagram, impulse response, spectrogram.
The second step include a connection of the SystemVue to
the measurement equipment, uploading simulated signal into
the generator, and playing it on the radio frequency through a
cable or an antenna.
The third step is uploading the simulated files into channel
emulator, adding the channel effects: noise, Doppler shift and
multipath. All effects are added to the baseband layer.
At the second and third steps the spectrum analyzer with a
vector analysis and demodulation features makes the output
signal control. Spectrum analyzer records signals to files
(VSA-type). These files can be then moved to the SystemVue
software for digital signal processing and demodulation, for
example, for counting bit error rate.
VI. USRP B210 BOARD IMPLEMENTATION
Section A below presents USRP B210 hardware
development framework for MIMO 2x2 Alamouti scheme.
Section B contains results of the trial radio link test we have
obtained after Matlab and Agilent test-bed simulations with
BPSK/QPSK demodulation using UHD.
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A. B210 Overview
Block diagram of the USRP B210 board consists of three
main parts (Fig 5):
• AD9361 Transceiver;
• Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA;
• Cypress FX3 USB3 Controller.
First part is based on AD9361 transceiver from Analog
Devices. This block is responsible for RF front-end processing
using two receive and two transmit channel. Processing
combines RF-to-zero-IF conversion and backward (down/up
conversion), gain, filtration, ADC/DAC and
decimation/interpolation. The AD9361 is connected to FPGA
via Digital Data Interface which operates in CMOS or LVDS
mode. For data transfer between AD9361 and FPGA I\Q
format is used.
Second part is based on Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA and
represents the digital signal processing blocks. List of blocks
is determined by the developer and depends on the specific
problem. Since RF part combines 2RX and 2TX channels it is
possible to create a 2x2 MIMO system. To achieve this
developer must realize MIMO encoder/decoder. To work with
wide range of standards (such as FM and TV broadcast,
cellular, Wi-Fi, ISM, and more), developer have to implement
a specific modulator/demodulator and encoding/decoding
scheme.
 2014 6th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT)
Fig. 5. Block diagram of the USRP B210 board
The USRP B210 uses USB3.0 Interface under Cypress
FX3 control for PC connectivity. This controller has a 32-bit
RISC ARM926 processor. Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is
used as a serial control interface to configure all of the
AD9361 digital and analog blocks. The ARM processor
executes FX3 firmware code, which processes instructions
from/to PC and translates them into SPI commands to/from
AD9361 SPI control registers. The SPI lines pass through the
FPGA, where they are level translated, and then head to the
AD9361.
At the early stage of the project to explore the possibilities
of the B210 application, all of the modulation\demodulation
blocks were implemented in software using GNU Radio [6].
B. B210 hardware experiment
It was essential to spend a few test experiments to create
SDR applications development methodology based on B210
and GNU Radio. Choosing between Linux and Windows we
decided to use Linux as the host operating system due to full
support for Ettus Research USRP devices. We had to check
several Linux distributions before one was found that fitted
perfectly with B210. Ubuntu 12.04 was chosen because of
stable work with combination of GNU Radio and UHD (B210
board).
First, we realized transmitter using standard blocks of
GNU radio library that can generate signals with different
types of modulation (BPSK, QPSK and FSK). Spectrum
analyzer by Agilent technologies was applied to check
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transmission results in the form of high-resolution
constellation diagrams and spectrums. Since, GNU Radio
supports UHD, we could control several parameters of zero
intermediate frequency tract, such as operational frequency,
sample rate, gain, low-pass filter corner frequency, decimation
factor and more. To get correct results on the screen of
spectrum analyzer, we faced some problems with adapting
parameters between GNU Radio and Agilent. For example,
scheme of transmitter in GNU radio consists symbol rate
parameter and Agilent software has sample rate parameter and
matching of these dimensions caused difficulties in getting
constellation diagrams.
All in all, hardware experiment consisted of PC with GNU
radio transmitter block scheme connected with B210 board by
USB cable and Agilent Spectrum analyzer with proper aerial
for receiving signal. As a result we have got spectrums
(Fig. 6, 7) of BPSK, QPSK and FSK modulations.
VII. FUTURE WORK
In the future work we will program the Xilinx Spartan 6
FPGA to make the MIMO 2x2 Alamouti
modulator/demodulator and encoding/decoding scheme. After
that we will continue laboratory tests to choose the best
modulation and coding scheme. Then we will make a field
trials in a rural area.
 2014 6th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT)
Fig. 6. BPSK Constellation Diagram and Spectrum
Fig. 7. QPSK Constellation Diagram and Spectrum
VIII. CONCLUSION
The aim of this paper is to show the design process of
433 MHz LPD band transceiver for long-range robot control
applications up to 10 km distance.
We suggested 2*2 Alamouti scheme for transceiver. We
also computed the radio link budget for given distance. The
results show that the communication system is feasible
meeting all the requirements of the LPD band (especially low
transmit power).
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In the paper we proposed high precision Agilent hardware
and SystemVue software test bench for performance
evaluation of 2*2 MIMO radio link.
We presented USRP B210 hardware development
framework for our MIMO 2x2 Alamouti scheme and
conducted trial radio link test with BPSK/QPSK
demodulation. We used UHD capabilities in conjunction with
GNU Radio software on the USRP B210 hardware. We
verified the system on the proposed Agilent test bench.
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