By Ben Hilburn | April 4, 2017
Rohde & Schwarz Engineering Competition using GNU Radio
Post by: Ben Hilburn
Greetings from Rohde & Schwarz! Today we want to tell you a bit about the Rohde & Schwarz Engineering Competition. This is the 14th year of the competition, which started in 2004, and this year’s challenge is based upon GNU Radio.
This year students from USA, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, UK, Ireland, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria can take part in the competition. Qualifiers in USA take place April 1st – April 25th 2017, qualifiers in Europe and Asia take place May 1st – May 23rd 2017. The big finale will be in Munich June 21- June 23.
About the Challenge
The goal of this year’s competition is to build the most efficient software-based coder for DVB-T2. The coder is the basis for an OFDM-based digital television system used primarily in Europe. You will use the latest maint branch of GNU Radio as the basis and do whatever you think is necessary to improve the performance and reduce the runtime.
The coder outputs I/Q modulation data, which is then used to generate an OFDM waveform. In a transmitter system the resulting RF signal is then fed to an amplifier. To have a fast and efficient software coder allows you to use software-based coding instead of relying on FPGAs, which is a more flexible approach. We will publish the code after the competition ends and plan to prepare a pull request including the best contributions.
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtB0RlxFNlA
How does the competition work?
Each time you submit your code to our server, it will be automatically compiled and tested for standard compliance and performance. To make the challenge more exciting, we continuously publish a ranking with the current position of all teams. All participants can ask their questions on our message board or on the official GNU Radio mailing list.
The winners of the qualifiers will receive an invitation to the finals at Rohde & Schwarz in Munich, Germany. The costs for travel and accommodation will be fully covered by Rohde & Schwarz. There you can win up to 3,000 USD per team!
Get ready for the ultimate challenge! May the most efficient code win!