Developing a new, high-end RF communications application? Historically, it’s been difficult to develop these systems quickly, because the evaluation boards were limited in capacity. This problem has recently been solved, though. In this video, explore the industry’s first SDR rapid prototyping kit, the Analog Devices AD-FMCOMMS5-EBZ.
Product Details
The AD-FMCOMMS5-EBZ is a high-speed analog module designed to showcase the AD9361 in multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) applications. The AD9361 is a high-performance, highly integrated RF transceiver that operates from 70MHz to 6GHz, and supports bandwidths from less than 200kHz to 56MHz.
The AD-FMCOMMS5-EBZ supports dual AD9361 devices, allowing for the creation of a 4x4 MIMO system. This platform is intended to enable the prototyping and development of many software-defined radio applications, such as active antennas, transmit beamforming, and receive angle of arrival systems.
The AD-FMCOMMS5-EBZ board has both wideband channels covering the full 6 GHz range, as well as narrowband channels matched to 2.4GHz. It also contains dual ADG918 SPDT switches, which create a calibration matrix between the two AD9361s. This switch matrix hardware, combined with the Analog Devices supplied API software, allows for a fully digital and RF synchronization between the two AD9361s.
Because the AD-FMCOMMS5-EBZ supports both narrow and wideband input and output connectivity, it provides RF engineers the ability to connect the AD9361 to an RF test bench (vector signal analyzer, signal generator, etc.) and measure narrowband performance, as well as provide software and system engineers the ability to quickly prototype across the full 6 GHz operating range. Additionally, it allows for both AD9361 devices to receive an on-board generated external LO signal, which can provide improved RF performance.
- Applications
- • General-purpose design suitable for any software-designed radio application
- • MIMO radio
- • Transmit beamforming and receive angle of arrival detection
- • Point to point communication systems
- • Femtocell/picocell/microcell base stations
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