Design of a Software Defined Radio Using Soc Builder

This paper deals with the development of SDR systems on XILINX RF-SOC devices using the MATHWORKS "SOC Builder" tool. RF-SOC are complex devices integrating microprocessors, FPGA, and RF converters (both ADC and DAC). This complexity requires engineers’ transversal competence sweeping from software, hardware, and RTL coding capabilities. For this reason, although these devices are very powerful, the implementation of complex systems on them is very demanding work. The MATHWORKS SOC builder tool is a promising toolchain that allows designers to develop complex SDR systems on XILINX RF-SOC using the Simulink environment, without the necessity to write c/c++ code and without the knowledge of HDL language. This work analyzes this interesting environment underlining its potential in the development of SDR systems. Experimental results are presented in terms of hardware complexity, maximum frequency and power consumption.