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Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Try to understand the stream in Gnu Radio


From: Zhonghua
Subject: Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Try to understand the stream in Gnu Radio
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:58:46 +0100
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.27) Gecko/20120216 Thunderbird/3.1.19

On 03/16/2012 09:35 PM, Tom Rondeau wrote:
On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Zhonghua <address@hidden> wrote:
On 03/16/2012 06:37 PM, Tom Rondeau wrote:
On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Zhonghua <address@hidden> wrote:
Hi all,

After a period of using gnu radio, I have a problem of how to understand the stream. I got an information from a literature says: 'From the high level point-of-view, infinite streams of data flow through the ports. At the C++ level,streams are dealt with in convenient sized pieces, represented as contiguous arrays of the underlying type.' In almost each signal processing block we can see the definition of 'general_work' has this format:
    general_work(int noutput_items,
                    gr_vector_int &ninput_items,
                    gr_vector_const_void_star &input_items,
                    gr_vector_void_star &output_items)
Some literatures say the 'noutput_items' variable represents the items number of one piece of the stream.  So the first question is what on earth the size of this variable? where dose it be specified? For example if A block connects to B block, how can ensure the 'noutput_items' of A block equal to the 'ninput_items' (presume B block only has one input stream).
In an concrete instance, in gr_squelch_base_cc.cc, we can see the last program as:
   if (d_state != ST_MUTED)
      out[j++] = in[i]*gr_complex(d_envelope, 0.0);
   else
      if (!d_gate)
         out[j++] = 0.0;
If we set d_gate as False(Actually in case of high sample rate it has to be set as False), when the input power is lower than the threshold(means the d_state should be as ST_MUTED), the out[j] shall get nothing. That means at this point there is no output data. So how the sequential block recognise this point? For instance the sequential block is ieee802_15_4_demod, how could it know where is this lost point? If only one point lost from the squelch block, is that means the whole piece of stream and even the whole package could not be demodulated correctly?
We can set the instance in more precise condition. If there are two pieces of stream: stream A and stream B. Assume each noutput_items is 10, that is to say we have A[0], A[1] ....to A[9] and B[0] to B[9]. If A[0] has lost, then the stream entering into the sequential demodulation block is A[0](lost),A[1]....A[9]? Or is A[1],A[2]....B[0]?
If A[0] is valid, A[1] has lost, dose that mean the first piece of stream would not be demodulated correctly? If one package need both these two pieces of stream, dose it mean this package would not be demodulated correctly?

Any answer is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Zhonghua

Zhonghua,

This is a really complicated question to answer without giving you a full essay. All of this happens in the scheduler, so if you want to know more, study the code for the thread-per-block scheduler in gnuradio-core/src/lib/runtime. It's the gr_block_executor that looks at the read/write pointers to each blocks buffer and determines how many samples are available to be read and how many samples a block can write.

Tom

Hi Tom,

Thank you for your information. I think you have answered the first question that where and how dose the size be determined. To the detailed question, do you think if one item lost, all this package will lose? And in my last instance, do you think which assemblage will be sent to the sequential block? Thank you again!

Zhonghua

I'm honestly not sure what you are getting at. Where/how would you lose an item?

Tom

Hi Tom,

The background is that we lose some packets when use USRP E100 to implement IEEE802.15.4 protocol(4M sample rate). The computation capacities of the E100 platform is not very good. We think the high sample rate gives the demodulation block too high input load so packets will lose. To decrease the input load of demodulation block, we manage to raise the threshold of the squelch block. But if the threshold is too high, maybe some valid input items of squelch block will be incorrectly filtered. So we need to make sure if only one item lost will make the whole packet lose.
From the original code of gr_squelch_base_cc.cc I think the first output item is always at the first position of the output piece no matter what the condition of the input piece. All output items in one piece should be consecutive. For example if input piece has IN[0],IN[1]...IN[5] in which IN[0] and IN[2] are lower than the threshold, the output piece should be OUT[0](IN[1]),OUT[1](IN[3]),OUT[2](IN[4]),OUT[3](IN[5]). There are no OUT[4] and OUT[5]. I don't know how does the subsequent demodulation sample this piece since it has only 4 items although one piece should has 6 items. One thing I think maybe sure is that if IN[2] is necessary but lost just because it is lower than the threshold, the input of demodulation block has changed so the result would not be correct.
I don't know is my understanding right or not.

Zhonghua

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