Speaker
Description
What if you could hear a QAM or OFDM signal? By translating RF waveform experimentation into the acoustic domain, realistic multipath, Doppler, digital modulation, and other physical-layer effects encountered in SDR systems can be explored using purpose-built open-source hardware, without the cost barrier of equivalent RF platforms. The key insight is wavelength-consistent scaling: compressing the frequency axis by the ratio of the speed of light to the speed of sound (roughly a factor of one million) maps RF waveforms into the audio band while preserving the underlying physics of propagation, reflection, and interference. SigPro Labs, LLC has developed the RadioSonic platform for this purpose.
Building on RadioSonic's introduction at GRCON 2025, this presentation reports progress since that work, focusing on recent developments in wavelength-consistent emulation of RF waveforms. This talk examines the practical challenges of using acoustics for this purpose. We’ll see (and hear!) how RF modulation behaves when observed “in slow motion,” and how conventional SDR algorithms for synchronization and demodulation perform under these conditions. As bandwidth increases, impairments familiar to SDR practitioners emerge in exaggerated form: intersymbol interference requiring equalization, carrier and timing offsets demanding synchronization algorithms analogous to those used in production SDR systems, and dramatically enhanced Doppler effects resulting from the much slower propagation speed of sound. This talk concludes by comparing where acoustic emulation faithfully mirrors RF behavior and where the analogy begins to break down.
| Talk Length | 30 Minutes |
|---|---|
| Link to Open Source Code | https://github.com/orgs/sigprolabs/dashboard (not ready not but will be available prior to conf) |
| Acknowledge | Acknowledge In-Person |