Unknowingly, I have accumulated quite a few SDR boards. Today, I will briefly introduce these models for friends interested in SDR.
The cheapest one is the ADALM-PLUTO, which is truly a conscientious product from ADI. It was originally priced at only $149, but now it is $199. It has a built-in ZYNQ 7010 and AD9363, and the factory supports 1×1 transceiving from 325MHz to 3.8GHz with a 20MHz bandwidth. However, it can actually be hacked to become AD9364, enabling transceiving from 70MHz to 6GHz with a 56MHz bandwidth.
Pluto can be used with ADI’s original IIO, or it can be controlled using Matlab’s support package for sending and receiving. There are also some third-party software options that can use it as a spectrum analysis and tracking source.
A more advanced option than Pluto is the original Zedboard + FMCOMMS2/3/4.
This set is relatively more expensive, with a brand new Zedboard costing over $500, and the FMCOMMS2/3 boards priced at $750 for the 2×2 configuration. The FMCOMMS4 is $399 because it is 1×1. Compared to Pluto, the advantages are obvious; the ZYNQ 7020 used in Zedboard is much richer in resources than the 7010, especially with the DSP resources increasing from 80 to 220.
Moreover, there are many official support packages for Zedboard, which is very convenient for FPGA verification and deployment.
The most advanced option is the Picozed SDR development kit. This set has actually been discontinued and is now sold under the name ADRV9361-Z7035 as an SDR SoM, requiring users to purchase an FMC baseboard separately.
The hardware resources of the Picozed SDR are the richest among the three, using the ZYNQ 7035 with up to 900 DSPs, surpassing the XC7K325T, allowing for more complex algorithms. The transceiver chosen is the AD9361, supporting 2×2 transceiving.
All three of these SDR platforms use the AD9361/9364/9363 chip solutions, characterized by high integration, wide bandwidth range, and relatively low prices. There are also more advanced options like the ZC706 + FMCOMMS5, which can support 4×4 transceiving, and the ZCU102 + FMCOMMS2/3/4, which can provide more resources.
If you only need frequencies of dozens of MHz or below, you might consider the previously introduced Redpitaya STEM 125-14. Redpitaya features dual-channel 125MSPS 14bit ADC&DAC, which can meet the needs of digital baseband and digital intermediate frequency. The downside is that it uses the ZYNQ 7010, which has fewer resources. The new model, 128.88-16, uses ZYNQ 7020 resources, which can provide a bit more.
