oshug-announce February 2017

oshug-announce@oshug.org

1 participants
3 discussions

OSHUG 56 — An introduction to software-defined radio with LimeSDR (workshop), Fri 24th March.
by Andrew Back 13 Feb '17

13 Feb '17

Hello, Registration is now open for the fifty-sixth meeting, which will be a one day workshop, providing a hands-on introduction to software-defined radio with the LimeSDR. This will cover key concepts and LMS7002M FPRF IC architecture, and include simple digital radio examples along with a demonstrations of advanced systems, such as 4G femtocell. Details can be be found below. Regards, Andrew // OSHUG #56 — An introduction to software-defined radio with LimeSDR On the 24 March 2017, 09:00 - 17:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: https://events.bcs.org/book/2451/ A Software-Defined Radio (SDR) is a highly reconfigurable radio that can be used for many different radio applications through simply changing the software that links with it. An example of such a reconfigurable radio is the LimeSDR, which can both transmit and receive data and voice, using just about any wireless system. The LimeSDR was launched by Lime Microsystems in May 2016 via a crowdfunding campaign, and is now shipping to over 3,500 customers worldwide. It is based on the Lime Microsystems LMS7002M Field Programmable RF (FPRF) 2x2 MIMO transceiver, which continuously covers frequencies from 100kHz to 3.8GHz. The LMS7002M has been successfully used in a wide range of digital radio applications, including 2G/4G Femtocell base stations, GNSS, DAB, DVBT receivers and RF test and measurement equipment. The LimeSDR also includes an FPGA and USB 3.0 to provide host connectivity. — Workshop scope The heart of the day is to provide a practical ‘hands-on’ afternoon session using the LimeSDR with the Lime Suite GUI and FFT Viewer. Then to use GNU Octave and Pothos to make some very simple digital radio examples. To facilitate this, the morning will include introductory talks explaining the purpose of the various analogue and digital blocks included in the LMS7002M. It will also include tutorial material covering the key concepts required to understand modern digital radio transceivers, and how to use them, as well as practical issues associated with radio reception. In addition the day will feature some advanced demonstrations showing the full capabilities of the LimeSDR and its LMS7002M transceiver, including 4G Femtocell, as well as educational examples such as a simple OFDM transceiver data link. — Participant requirements ** Participants are required to bring a laptop computer with USB 3.0 ** Minimum computer hardware requirements are USB 3.0 capability and 2GB RAM. Although no prior knowledge of radio is required, an awareness of basic terminology will be very helpful. Basic computer programming and administration skills will also be helpful. The software that will be used must be installed prior to the event. For details see: https://wiki.myriadrf.org/LimeSDR_Workshop — What is provided * LimeSDR hardware will be provided for use during the workshop * A light lunch will be provided and please ensure that any dietary requirements are made clear during registration — Hosted by The workshop will be led by Dr. Danny Webster, who has over 25 years of experience in the field of RF design covering varied applications from military radio to cellular infrastructure. Danny Graduated from Swansea University in 1988 and was awarded a PhD from University College London in 1995. From 1995 he worked as a Research Fellow at University College London and was a consultant to companies such as Nokia, Roke Manor Research and Agilent in Santa Rosa. From 2001 he was with Hipertech and joined Lime Micro in 2005 as Principle Design Engineer (RF) working on Field programmable RF ICs. Danny is a senior member of the IEEE. This workshop is free to attend and hosted by Lime Microsystems in partnership with the BCS Open Source Specialist Group and the Open Source Hardware User Group. Note: Please aim to arrive by 08:45 as the workshop will start at 09:00 prompt. -- Andrew Back http://abopen.com

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Open Source Hardware Camp 2017 (2nd & 3rd Sept) Call for Participation.
by Andrew Back 09 Feb '17

09 Feb '17

Hello, This year Open Source Hardware Camp will take place over the weekend of Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd September, hosted as part of the Wuthering Bytes festival in Hebden Bridge, which in 2017 will take place over the course of 10 days (again!) We will be returning to the Birchcliffe Centre in Hebden Bridge, which benefits from the convenience of adjoining, budget accommodation. Proposals for talks and workshops for OSHCamp 2017 are invited! There is no theme and topics may include, for example: * Open source hardware projects * Open development practices and principles * Novel/interesting/fun projects built using open source hardware * Tools (hardware and software) * Skills and techniques, e.g. PCB fab, DIY SMT assembly * Relevant technologies, e.g. SPI/I2C bus programming * ...something else relevant to the community If you would like to give a talk on the Saturday and/or run a workshop on the Sunday please contact me off-list. **** Note that the deadline for submitting titles and abstracts is Monday 1st May. If you would like to discuss ideas etc. please get in touch sooner, rather than later. **** Other events running as part of Wuthering Bytes 2017 and which may be of interest: * Fri 1st: Wuthering Bytes Festival Day * Wed 6th & Thurs 7th: Chip Hack (http://chiphack.org/) * Thurs 7th PM & Fri 8th AM: EDSAC Challenge * Fri 8th AM - Sunday 10th PM: GNU ORConf (http://orconf.org/) Further details on these events to be provided in due course. Cheers, Andrew PS. If you are planning on coming along and thinking of staying at the adjoining hosted, it is worth noting that this can book up quickly. http://www.hebdenbridgehostel.co.uk/ PPS. Super Early Bird tickets for the super organised: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-source-hardware-camp-2017-tickets-31845… -- Andrew Back http://abopen.com

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OSHUG 55 — FPGA projects past, planned and possible, Thursday 16th February.
by Andrew Back 07 Feb '17

07 Feb '17

Hello, Registration is now open for the February meeting, details of which can be found below. We also still have space for 1 or 2 more short talks of 10-15 minutes, so if you have an idea for a talk, get in touch! regards, Andrew // Event #55 — FPGA projects past, planned and possible On the 16 February 2017, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/55 The fifty-fifth meeting will feature a series of shorter talks that explore past, planned and possible projects which use FPGAs. — FPGA Projects - What would I build and why would I want to PLAs have been interesting ever since the 70s when digital logic often became complex, consuming unnecessary space and power. Back then the cost of PLA deployment was high and it has continued to be high until recently. Now that we have powerful, low cost development platforms and relatively cheap FPGAs the cost equation has shifted radically. * Paul Tanner is a consultant, developer and maker in wood, metal, plastic, electronics and software. His day job is IT-based business improvement for SMEs. By night he turns energy nut, creating tools to optimise energy use. Paul graduated in electronics and was responsible for hardware and software product development and customer services in several product and service start-ups, switching to consulting in 2000. — Using FPGAs to solve realtime problems Microcontrollers a great platform to solve basic control problems in electronics, with simple motor drivers and sensors readily avaiable and easy to integrate. However, when the motor control becomes more complex with BLDC and FOC things get much more tricky. When you have to use multiple BLDC motors and more complex sensors with image processing the poor microcontroller quickly becomes to swamped to provide control in realtime. This is where adding FPGA technology makes a great deal of sense particularly in mutli-discipline projects like robotics where many sensors, motors and image processing will need to be managed and controlled concurrently. A robotics platform must therefore contain both concurrent hardware resources, algorithmic control through soft or hard cores along with communication protocols. * Alan Wood has been working with parallel distributed programming for several decades. His recent work includes smart grids, 3D printers, robotics, automation and biotec diagnostics. His current research is focused on machine learning, inference and image processing for embedded applications using FPGA and multi-cores. He is a long term advocate and moderator (aka Folknology) for xCORE and other opensource communities, as well as a founder of Surrey and Hampshire Makerspace and myStorm FPGA development boards. — FPGAs in the Cloud? It is no secret that FPGA based computing machines are great at dealing with certain types of workloads that conventional CPU based machines can not efficiently handle. These machines, alongside their GPU and even custom ASIC based brethren, have been filling up racks in large data centres all over the globe helping speed up systems that have components of machine learning, complex analytics and even video processing. This short talk will have a look at the state of FPGAs in the datacenter and discuss the recent developments around the availability of FPGA equipped computing nodes in commodity cloud providers. * Omer Kilic is an Embedded Systems Engineer who enjoys working with small connected computers of all shapes and sizes. He works at the various intersections of hardware and software engineering practices, product development and manufacturing. — Chip Hack 2017 & EDSAC Challenge This talk will introduce and issue a call for participation for two events that are being hosted as part of the Wuthering Bytes technology festival, that will take place in Hebden Bridge in September, in the week following Open Source Hardware Camp 2017. Chip Hack is a two day hands-on workshop that provides a gentle introduction to programming FPGAs and is aimed at novices with no prior experience of Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) or FPGAs. This will be followed immediately by a challenge event, during which a small team of experts will work to extend a basic functional FPGA model of EDSAC — the pioneering computer designed and constructed at Cambridge University, and which was operational by 1949. * Dr Jeremy Bennett is founder and Chief Executive of Embecosm, a consultancy implementing open source compilers and chip simulators for major corporations around the world. He is a author of the standard textbook "Introduction to Compiling Techniques" (McGraw-Hill 1990, 1995, 2003). Contact him at: jeremy.bennett(a)embecosm.com. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. // -- Andrew Back http://abopen.com

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oshug-announce February 2017