Original Article

International Journal of Electrical Engineering

& Education
USRP 2901-based 0(0) 1–16
! The Author(s) 2019
SISO-GFDM transceiver Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
design experiment DOI: 10.1177/0020720919857620
journals.sagepub.com/home/ije

in virtual and
remote laboratory

T Nagarjuna1 , S Lakshmi2 and

K Nehru3

Abstract
This article commenced the real-time education and research podium for characterize
wireless networks, analog and digital communications courses with National
Instruments Universal Software Radio Peripheral Device (NI USRP 2901) device.
The 5G Cellular communications will claim remarkable flexibility from the physical
layer. Many research ideas are proposed and compared with the theoretical part but
there is a lack of enactment of a system under real-time channel conditions and front-
end impairments. In this article, a single-input single-output generalized frequency divi-
sion multiplexing transceiver is performed with NI USRP 2901, which utilizes radio
frequency platform it has the ability to work as the transceiver in the frequency range of
70 MHz to 6 GHz and it also provides multiple input and multiple output support,
which is helpful for the implementation of industry-based wireless operation proto-
types. The generalized frequency division multiplexing system model is programmed in
the LabVIEW software block diagram panel along with USRP configuration utility.
In view of field-programmable gate arrays, both programming host handling and con-
tinuous preparing can be actualized. This usage enables the clients to assess distinctive

1
Research Scholar, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Sathyabama Institute of Science and
Technology, Chennai, India
2
Associate Professor, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Sathyabama Institute of Science and
Technology, Chennai, India
3
Professor, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Institute of Aeronautical Engineering,
Hyderabad, India
Corresponding author:
T Nagarjuna, Research Scholar, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Sathyabama Institute of Science
and Technology, Chennai 600119, Tamil Nadu, India.
Email: textfornagarjuna@gmail.com
2 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

generalized frequency division multiplexing performance characteristics, such as

total harmonic distortion, signal in noise and distortion (dB), and specific harmonic,
transmitted bit stream and received bit stream with error count, bit error rate value,
and its graph are plotted. The simulation results show that the generated generalized
frequency division multiplexing signal has a total harmonic distortion value of 0.793054
and signal in noise and distortion value of 0.204343. The specific harmonic value is
0.0228768 and the bit error rate value is 0.003125. The generalized frequency division
multiplexing signal slightly outperforms the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
signal in terms of real-time transmission signal characteristics such as total harmonic
distortion, signal in noise and distortion, bit error rate, power spectrum value,
Wigner–Ville distribution value in the two-dimensional array and corresponding
graphs are plotted. The proposed system outperforms existing system by a margin
of 3% in real-time channel using the USRP 2901 device.

Keywords
LabVIEW, generalized frequency division multiplexing, USRP, bit error rate, signal-
to-noise ratio, field-programmable gate array

Introduction
The demand for fifth-generation wireless networks requires without previous
instance flexibility of the physical layer. The authors proposed an implementation,
which works under real-time channel conditions using today’s technology with the
help of USRP-RIO device. This device can afford the convolution of new wave-
forms such as generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM), filter bank
multi-carrier (FBMC), and universal filter bank multi-carrier (UFMC), etc., this
system model integrated the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) device
with LabVIEW software and used different signal processing tools and real-time
processing based on FPGAs. Here, 2
2 multiple input and multiple output
(MIMO) GFDM systems are implemented, and its characteristics are evaluated.1
The future communications require high data rates for the exchange of multimedia
such as audio, video, etc. for different connected devices. The latency
of communication systems in the fifth generation should be reduced to 1 ms,
i.e. round trip delay from transmitter to receiver; the present latency time is 10 ms
for fourth-generation cellular networks. The tactile internet will be a driver for inno-
vation and economic growth for the new level of industry.2 The authors tried to identify
the drivers for the transition of current wireless networks to 5G networks. The Internet
of Things (IoT) is coming up with huge capabilities, and it needs to integrate with
conventional human transmissions, and strict paradigm of nonorthogonality and syn-
chronism is to be maintained. The multicarrier waveforms design, which uses a filter
operation to support signal processing applications, transmits with less latency.3
Nagarjuna et al. 3

The cellular networks in the fifth generation should support ultra-low power
consumption applications with short response times. The authors analyzed the new
waveform named GFDM characteristics and highlighted its relevant features.
This paper contributes to the analysis of symbol error rate (SER) over additive
white Gaussian noise and Rayleigh fading channels, the concepts of integration
with MIMO to achieve spectral efficiency and diversity in fading channels, the
preamble-based synchronization, and bit error rate (BER) calculations for coded
GFDM signal.4 Also, GFDM regulation methods are alluring for applications in
the divided range because of its adaptability to pick distinctive pulse shape, while
in OFDM the pulse is rectangular, by picking diverse pulse shapes the lessening of
out of band (OOB) spillage in the range. The small drawback faced by GFDM is
its loss of orthogonality and causes intercarrier interference (ICI). Here, the
authors proposed a double-sided serial interference technique to cancel the ICI
and compared the simulation results with OFDM.5
GFDM is also suitable as cognitive radio signal because of the flexibility in
pulse shaping and tail biting cyclic prefix (CP). This paper gives the details of the
experimental study of the GFDM waveform in long-term evolution (LTE) and
explains the improved sensing performance of cognitive radio waveform-based
GFDM and produces less number of false alarms when compared to OFDM-
based cognitive radio waveform.6 In the uplink scenario, several users are not
synchronized to each other causing the interference to occur, which is called as
inter-user interference (IUI).
IUI is mostly caused by the synchronization between time and frequencies,
which are not properly adjusted between the users, where the physical layer is
accommodated with GFDM and OFDM. The simulation results show that
GFDM reduces the IUI in comparison to OFDM.7 The proposed framework
for 5G cognitive radio-based GFDM in the current 4G LTE systems were
implemented, and it helps to study concepts in cognitive radio technology,
device-to-device (D2D) communications, machine-to-machine (M2M)-type com-
munications, and also load balancing. The simulation results of LTE-based
OFDM system was compared.8 GFDM is a waveform, which intends to provide
different applications for 5G networks, and its performance was evaluated in terms
of capacity. The parameter capacity is analyzed in this article for different cases
such as channel state information (CSI), which is unknown in the transmitter
section and perfectly known at the receiver section. The authors integrated the
GFDM system with MIMO and applied expectation propagation for the receiver
design. The results outperform the conventional MIMO–OFDM system.9
The interference among the subcarriers of MIMO GFDM makes it difficult for
the applications of 5G. To combat against the interference, the authors proposed a
calculation that joins most extreme probability and impedance crossing out
identification methods and spatial multiplexing (SM) procedures.10 In this article,
five innovative technologies are described that lead to design changes for 5G cel-
lular networks. They are named device-centric architecture, mm-wave technology,
massive MIMO, smart devices, M2M communications.11 The authors proposed
4 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

the UFMC technique for a group of subcarriers to decrease to the OOB radiation
and reduce the ICI between users. UFMC outperforms the conventional system
between the user equipment and base stations.12 GFDM promises to meet Industry
4.0 applications and also provides low latency. The GFDM system model was
investigated in the software-defined radio (SDR) platform.13
This article presents SDR implementation of GFDM in the GNU radio.
The transmission of a signal through the medium air is facilitated in order to
know the sampling rate. The authors achieve a sampling rate of 25 MS/s for the
proposed implementation.14 The virtual instrumentation (VI) programming model
was designed using USRP 2901 device and acts as frequency modulation (FM)
transceiver and this VI snippet is taken as reference.15 USRP device specifications
are taken as the reference.16 The OFDM–USRP experiment results show that the
received sensitivity of 59 dBm attains at the packet error rate of 1% in a 5 GHz
band of frequency.17 The real-time Wi-Fi Laboratory platform is designed and
implemented as a part of engineering curriculum courses using USRP device and
LabVIEW modules.18

Educational objectives
This paper can be useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students in their
projects where USRP device can be used as a spectrum analyzer to find the live
radio stations in a particular area and also be able to listen to these stations such as
FM, digital audio broadcasting (DAB), and digital video broadcasting (DVB).
The students can design the digital communication transceiver systems with real-
data such as speech signal, image, and the video signal and analyze them using signal
processing tools for wireless applications. This programming environment software
is used to integrate a variety of different hardware devices using USRP devices.
This paper has designed a platform that provides many research ideas in the
field of cellular and mobile communications, wireless network, communications,
and innovations for both teachers and researchers. This paper plays a major role in
real-time applications because of the USRP device, which works in the range of 70
MHz to 6 GHz. This paper proposed and designed a system model with
5G candidate waveform named as GFDM, which plays a major role in upcoming
cellular communications. The researches and students of undergraduate and post-
graduate can understand the sequence of steps designed for the system model.
Applications such as FM radio, cognitive radio and spectrum sensing are also
possible, and the radio broadcasting and video broadcasting signals can be listened
and viewed in real time. The tracking of the signal and locking its phase and
frequency can also be possible with USRP devices with digital and analog phase
locked loop design using this platform.
The real-time education in virtual instrumentation lab was presented, which
depicts the remote and advanced correspondences for undergrad and experienced
alumni students. This proposed system presents the undergrads hands-on under-
standing of remote usage models and investigates the constant remote channel.
Nagarjuna et al. 5

The high adaptability of the NI LabVIEW programming permits students the

mapping of the transceiver to decide ongoing traffic at 2.4 GHz recurrence band.

Importance of virtual and remote laboratories in

engineering education
Virtual laboratories are an integral part of the engineering course structure, and it
enables the students to work with key concepts in their area of interest. Virtual labs
are used as an alternative to the real-time physical labs because it is easier for
students to change simulation parameters, change variables after the VI program
experiment is set-up, whereas it takes more time for physical laboratories for the
instructor as well as the student. Students are able to solve a large set of complex
equations in a VI lab rather in a physical lab where they probably give up.
This sustains the interest of the student for high-level problem solving and helps
him motivated for different designs. The multimedia communication is possible in
virtual labs; it supports various formats such as graphics interchange format, text,
sound files, JPEG images, animation, video files. It helps students to interact with
real-time communication.
In general, virtual labs can be classified into three formats: (i) virtual labs with
two-dimensional simulation, (ii) virtual labs with three-dimensional simulations,
and (iii) sensor-actuated and remotely controlled virtual lab.19 Online engineering
education presents a challenge for teachers to convert real to virtual labs. Simulation
environments can expose students to practical knowledge.20 Many academic insti-
tutions in an engineering discipline that teach subjects have incorporated virtual
instruments as teaching and measuring tools for student use. This article explains
different LabVIEW module applications.21
The architecture comprises three parts: hardware, software, and development
tools. The hardware includes VI server, VI lab, data acquisition, and lab appara-
tus. The software component provides a web interface for the user to conduct the
virtual and remote experiments as shown in Figure 1; the software packages used
are NI LabVIEW.

Figure 1. Virtual and remote lab architecture.

6 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 2. GFDM Transmitter block diagram using the USRP device.

SISO–GFDM system model using USRP device

The NI USRP open transmitter session.VI opens a transmission session to the
device that is specified in the front panel named as ni2901_1. The USRP device
configuration.VI configures the transmit signal. The binary source generates the
binary digits (bits) randomly. The information source may be a speech signal,
which is in the frequency range of 3.5 kHz or the video signal, which is in the
range of 4.5 MHz; these generated bits are passed through source encoder along
with probabilities in which the encoder may be Shannon or Huffman.
These encoder bits are given to quadrature amplitude modulation in which the
symbols are mapped in the rectangular constellation diagram. The niUSRPwriteTx
data.VI writes the data to the specified channels and, finally, USRP FPGA trans-
mitter is integrated with Verto Antenna as shown in Figure 2.
The output of USRP FPGA receiver is given to the VanDeBeek.VI, which will
decode the signal. Cyclic prefix.VI is used to remove data from the frame and
extract N data symbols. Time and frequency synchronization are performed,
yielding ys. Cyclic prefix permits utilizing zero-compelling channel evening out
as effectively being utilized as a part of OFDM. However, the correct decision
of the beat shape and suitable impedance dropping calculations in the collector
empower GFDM to coordinate the execution of OFDM in AWGN channels.
The carrier frequency offset (CFO) correction.VI contains the value of carrier
frequency offset. Channel estimation.VI estimates the channel based on the
received reference symbols. The received output bit streams are shown in
the front panel. The error count is calculated with EX-OR operation between
input data bits and output data bits. Finally, BER is calculated for different
signal-to-noise (SNR) values. Each block operation in the receiver is explained
in Figure 3. Table 1 shows the working operation of the VIs used.

Implementation model
The USRP transceivers are used in the prototyping of the wireless communica-
tion systems.
Figure 4 shows the experimental set up used in the virtual lab, which has a
USRP device connected to the personal computer. The device shows red and green
color blinking at the connected VERT2540 antenna. The red color indicates the
Nagarjuna et al. 7

Figure 3. GFDM receiver block diagram using the USRP device.

Table 1. VIs used in the system model and operation in the wireless USRP platform.

VI name Working task

Transmitter Session.VI Opens a Tx Session to the USRP device

NI USRP Write Txdata.VI
VanDeBeek.VI
FFT.VI
CFO Correction.VI
Channel estimation.VI
Writes the data to the specified channels
Removes data from the frame and extract N data symbols
Performs fast Fourier transform
Contains the value of carrier frequency offset
Estimates the channel based on the received reference symbols

Figure 4. Experimental setup in the virtual laboratory.

data being transmitted by the device and the green color indicates the data being
received by the USRP. The device specifications are shown in Table 2.

Enactment platform
NI USRP 2901 was used in implementing the SISO GFDM framework.
This USRP device has coordinated FPGA, which permits facilitating of all flag
preparing devices. The favorable primary position is RF front end with two RF
channels, i.e. RF0 and RF1. This gadget works in the frequencies from 75MHz to
3 GHz with a perfect transmission capacity of 40 MHz. A personal computer is
associated with the USRP employing USB3.0 link. The favorable fundamental
8 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Table 2. USRP device specifications.

Parameters Range

Frequency range 70 MHz to 6 GHz

Gain of USRP device 8.75 dB
Digital-to-analog converter 12 bits
Maximum input power 15 dBm
Maximum output power 20 dBm
VERT2450 antenna frequency range 2.4–2.48 GHz
Antenna gain 3 dB
Radiation pattern Omni directional
Polarization Vertical

Figure 5. Schematic overview of the hardware set up.

position in correspondence chain can be actualized in programming in addition to

the equipment.

SISO–GFDM demonstrator
This set up comprises two USRP RIO 2901 gadgets, one is utilized as the trans-
mitter, and another is the beneficiary as displayed in Figure 5. Each USRP is
associated with the controlled (PC). On the transmitter have PC, information is
created, adjusted with GFDM waveform. Table 2 shows the parameters used in the
setup. The IQ samples are commutated through USB 3.0 association with FPGA
on the 2901 device, which at that point performs advanced to simple change and
Nagarjuna et al. 9

Table 3. Design parameters.

Parameters Variable Value

Pulse shaping filter g RRC

Filter parameter a 0.9
Digital inphase and quadrature IQ 5 M samples/s
Transmitter carrier frequency Fct 910 MHz
Transmitter gain Gt 3 dB
Receiver gain Gr 9 dB
Length of cyclic prefix Np 64 ms
Modulation order l 4-QAM
No. of subcarriers K 64,256
No. of subsymbols M 5
No. of symbols/frame N 320
No. of channels – 1
Received carrier frequency Fcr 2 GHz

sends the GFDM time space motion over the medium air. On the beneficiary side,
the USRP 2901 device receives IQ data with the assistance of VERTO radio wire
and sends them to the PC through a USB 3.0 connection where the demodulation
happens. USRP includes an FPGA for advanced digital signal processing appli-
cations where the user can program with the LabVIEW FPGA module.

Implementation of GFDM system using LabVIEW

Table 3 shows the applicable parameters utilized as a part of the demonstrator set
up. The IQ samples are exchanged employing the USB 3.0 in association with the
FPGA on the transmitter USRP 2901. This gadget at that point plays out the
computerized to simple change and sends the GFDM signal to the continuous
channel or the medium air. While going to the beneficiary segment, the USRP
gadget receives the IQ data and sends them PC through USB 3.0 link association,
where the GFDM demodulation occurs.
Figure 6 gives a clear explanation of the GFDM transmitter along with the
subVI. The time-domain signal is given to the GFDM modulator followed by the
cyclic prefix and zero padding to avoid the inter symbolic interference (ISI).
This time-domain signal is plotted using a graph in the front panel as shown in
Figure 9. GFDM time-domain signal is given to niUSRP write Tx data. VI, and it
transmits the IQ samples to the USRP device with the help of VERT2450 where
the signal can be transmitted through air.
Figure 7 shows the subVI used in the GFDM transmitter. Here, generated
filter coefficients.VI is used to generate the pulse shaping filter coefficients.
This VI has a special feature, i.e. for different digital modulation VIs, it calculates
filter coefficients.
10 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 6. GFDM transmitter virtual instrumentation program.

Figure 7. SubVI of the GFDM transmitter.

Nagarjuna et al. 11

The time-domain coefficients are converted to the frequency domain with the help
of fast Fourier transform (FFT) VI. Random data are generated, and it is modu-
lated by QAM and its data are added with filter coefficients data. The M-QAM is
chosen because of the efficient use of the bandwidth. It represents a number of bits
per carrier. M represents constellation size, if M ¼ 64, 6 bits per carrier can be
transmitted similarly if QAM can represent M ¼ 256, 8 bits per carrier. M also
depends on the minimum distance (d-min), which can affect the BER. If d-min is
increased, BER will be lower. M-QAM has smaller d-min than M-PSK for M > 4
and the same transmitted power. In conclusion, M-QAM can provide better BER
performance over M-PSK. This subVI has only one input, i.e. filter parameter,
where the roll off factor value “a” and output is the time-domain signal with the
array data type “X”.
Figure 8 shows the GFDM receiver VI program. The GFDM receiver is pro-
grammed with a sequence of steps. The first step is the transmitted signal or IQ
samples are captured by the USRP device and passes them to the PC through the
USB 3.0 cable. The device is configured with the carrier frequency, IQ rate, and
the number of samples and gain of the active antenna. The second step is the

Figure 8. GFDM receiver virtual instrumentation program.

12 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 9. Screenshot of the GFDM transmitter output.

transmitted data are passed through VanDeBeek.vi algorithm. The received

symbol contains the cyclic prefix, and it can be removed by using remove cyclic
prefix.Vi program. After removing CP, the CFO value is checked for properly
recovering data. FFT is used to convert the data into frequency-domain represen-
tation for removing zero padding in the symbol. Finally, channel estimator.VI is
used to recover the original data. Here, EX-OR gate is used between the input bit
stream and output bit stream to calculate how many bits are affected by errors.
BER is calculated for the received signal for the SNR under the real-time chan-
nel conditions.

Results and discussions

Figure 9 shows the front panel screenshot of the GFDM transmitter. The input bit
stream is shown in a one-dimensional array with bits 1’s and 0’s. The pulse shaping
filter coefficient “a” is 0.9. The IQ sampling rate is 5M samples/s. The carrier
frequency used by the USRP RIO device is 2 GHz. The gain of an active antenna
is 7 dB. The performance characteristics of the GFDM time signal is calculated
using the icon named distortion measurements in the LabVIEW. The signal is
applied to the icon, and it performs distortion measurements on a signal, such
as THD and SINAD. The generated GFDM signal has THD value 0.793054 and
SINAD (dB) is 0.204343. The specific harmonic value is 0.0228768.
Figure 10 shows the power spectrum was plotted, which shows the distribution
of the energy of a GFDM waveform among its different frequency components.
The Wigner–Ville distribution (WVD) algorithm computes the energy distribution
of the input signal in the joint time-frequency domain. WVD spectrogram fXg is a
2D array that describes the energy distribution of X in the joint time–frequency
domain. The figure also shows the 16-QAM constellation symbols.
Nagarjuna et al. 13

Figure 10. Screenshot of the GFDM transmitter output.

Figure 11. Screenshot of the GFDM receiver in the front panel.

Figure 11 shows the screenshot of the GFDM receiver in the front panel.
The received output bit stream is shown in the one-dimensional array. An EX-
OR gate is used between input bit stream and output bit stream to calculate the
error count. Here, the figure shows the error count value to be 5. The value will
change in the fraction of seconds because the VI program receives data in milli-
seconds. The received carrier frequency is 2 GHz. BER value is 0.003125. BER
with respect to SNR graph is plotted using the graph. The graph shows the
14 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

constant BER value at SNR values ranging from 0 dB to 1 dB. From 1dB to 10 dB
the BER value slightly reduces. The number of samples is 1600. The IQ rate is 5 M
samples/s. The gain of the receiver antenna is 7 dB.

Conclusion
In this paper, we proposed that the USRP-based GFDM transceiver is designed for
a SISO antenna. In this work, the performance characteristics of GFDM signal in
USRP RIO FPGA platform was simulated and analyzed in the real-time channel,
with the aim to explore the characteristics of the GFDM system. This paper eval-
uates the research results such as BER, THD, SINAD, WVD spectrogram values
and power spectrum values are simulated in real-time environment with FPGA-
based transceiver. At the receiver, the GFDM block is decoded using the linear
estimator VI program, which provides slightly more gain than OFDM. This pro-
posed system shows better performance with respect to the OFDM signal with a
small margin of 3% in terms of the real-time channel using hardware equipment.

Future scope
Instead of inverse fast Fourier transform VI (IFFT.VI), the inverse discrete Gabor
transform (DGT) can be applied at the transmitter and receiver for combatting ISI
and ICI in broadband channels. The SISO can be expanded to MIMO because the
future waveforms and communication networks need to be capable of supporting
MIMO technology. This implementation can be designed in LabVIEW communi-
cation suite 2.0 for testing in LTE-A platform. The pilot-aided channel estimation
can be used in the GFDM receiver to combat against the interference. With dif-
ferent techniques, the spectral characteristics and PAPR plots GFDM signal can
be plotted using graphs and charts and analyzed using graph palette.

Acknowledgment
The authors thank the Institute of Aeronautical Engineering and Sathyabama University
for establishing LabVIEW remote laboratory in the campus for making this implementation
possible. They would also like to thank technical support associates from national instru-
ments and associates from NI YANTRA 2017 event that happened in Bangalore for pro-
viding the best inputs for the design.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
Nagarjuna et al. 15

ORCID iD
T Nagarjuna https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6184-6283

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