CDMA or OFDM

OFDM subcarriers in frequency domain

Reading about interference cancellation techniques today, I recalled an interesting article by Sridhar Vembu titled Two Philosophies in CDMA: A Stroll Down Memory Lane. Vembu is the founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation, a venture which has turned him into…
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I/Q Signals 101: Neither Complex Nor Complicated

(Top) An 8-PSK waveform. (Bottom) Two constellation diagrams: one at the Tx shown by thick red lines and the other at the Rx for a phase offset of 17 degrees shown by dotted purple lines

There was a recent discussion on GNU Radio mailing list in regards to the simplest possible intuition behind I/Q signals. Why is I/Q sampling required? Question: The original question from Kristoff went like this: “… when you mention `GNU Radio…
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Mueller and Muller Timing Synchronization Algorithm

Logic behind Mueller Muller TED

Proposed in 1976, Mueller and Muller algorithm is a timing synchronization technique that operates at symbol rate, as opposed to most other synchronization algorithms that require at least 2 samples/symbol. The most confusing thing communication engineers and radio hobbyists find…
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On Physics of Productivity

Isaac Newton

James Clear, an expert on habits formation, wrote an excellent essay titled The Physics of Productivity: Newton’s Laws of Getting Stuff Done. In that article, he explained Newton’s three laws of motion from his book The Principia: Mathematical Principles of…
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Why Building an SDR Requires DSP Expertise

Bandwidth, power and DSP correspond to the traditional trio of raw materials, energy and knowledge

In an introduction to signals, we discussed the idea that the any activities around us, starting from subatomic particles to massive societal networks, are generating signals all the time. Since mathematics is the language of the universe and digital signals…
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