Sep 26 – 30, 2022
Capital Hilton
US/Eastern timezone
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DIFI: The Universal Language for Streaming Digitized RF

Sep 29, 2022, 11:00 AM
30m
Presidential Ballroom (Capital Hilton)

Presidential Ballroom

Capital Hilton

Talk SDR Instrumentation and Control Main Track

Speakers

Christian Rodriguez (Microsoft and DIFI Consortium) Jose De La Cruz (Microsoft)

Description

DIFI is a new IEEE open standard for streaming digitized RF/IF samples and corresponding metadata over standard IP networks, opening potential for true interoperability between SDRs and real-time signal processing hardware and software. DIFI is a specific schema for VITA 49.2, and it uses UDP as the transport layer. DIFI was originally tailored to overcome the vendor lock-in that has been ubiquitous in the satellite industry, but it has since expanded for use beyond satellite applications. In this talk we provide an overview of the DIFI protocol and show off some example use-cases, including using the GNU Radio DIFI blocks maintained by the DIFI Consortium (gr-difi). We go over the pros and cons of using DIFI versus other data planes for carrying high-rate IQ samples over a network, e.g., between a GNU Radio flowgraph and another software or hardware component. Lastly, we will demonstrate how DIFI can be used along with SigMF, for offline archival of RF data.

[1] IEEE-ISTO Std 4900-2021: Digital IF Interoperability Standard, v1.0 – August 18, 2021
[2] https://github.com/DIFI-Consortium/gr-difi

Talk Length 30 Minutes
Acknowledge Acknowledge In-Person

Primary authors

Christian Rodriguez (Microsoft and DIFI Consortium) Jose De La Cruz (Microsoft) Marc Lichtman (Microsoft)

Presentation materials