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= Summer of Code 2019: Project ideas list =
Note- also check out [[Grant Ideas]] for additional ideas that are more suited towards grant money than GSoC.


This is the list of project ideas for the summer of code 2019 within GNU Radio.<br />
 
== Summer of Code 2024: Project ideas list ==
 
This is the list of project ideas for the summer of code 2024 within GNU Radio.<br />
Remember that these are '''ideas''' and are merely meant as an inspiration for you to write your own proposal.
Remember that these are '''ideas''' and are merely meant as an inspiration for you to write your own proposal.


Students who do not find a fit among these projects are encouraged to engage with us and suggest new ones. The [http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/MailingLists GNU Radio discussion mailing list] is the best place to contact all of us. Please do not contact us off-list for the sake of discussing the summer of code, unless you're contacting a mentor listed here to get feedback on a proposal.
Students who do not find a fit among these projects are encouraged to engage with us and suggest new ones. The [[MailingLists|GNU Radio discussion mailing list]] is the best place to contact all of us. Please do not contact us off-list for the sake of discussing the summer of code, unless you're contacting a mentor listed here to get feedback on a proposal.


Reviewing the [https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/faq Google GSoC FAQ] page for a broader understanding of project, mentor, and student responsibilities is recommended.
Reviewing the [https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/faq Google GSoC FAQ] page for a broader understanding of project, mentor, and student responsibilities is recommended.
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* Both OOTs and in-tree improvements are welcome
* Both OOTs and in-tree improvements are welcome


== Ideas ==


=== Hardware in the Loop: Cycle-accurate Verilog Design Simulation Integration ===


Hardware accelerators are necessary or at least desirable in many SDR systems.
=== Graphical interoperability between CyberEther and GNU Radio ===


A typical development workflow for FPGA-accelerated DSP system looks like this:
The [https://github.com/luigifcruz/CyberEther CyberEther] project comes with some neat graphical sinks that would be great to have access to in GNU Radio. This project entails creating a new CyberEther GUI workflow much like the [https://github.com/gnuradio/gr-bokehgui gr-bokehgui] project, such that users can create flowgraphs with CyberEther sinks. This would allow the user to visualize GNU Radio data streams in one of the high-performance CyberEther plots (lineplot, waterfall, spectrogram, etc).


* Write down the system specification, formulate the algorithm mathematically
'''Prerequisites'''
* Implement the algorithm in Matlab, Python to make a Proof of Concept
* Write extensive test cases to make sure you've got everything right
* Iterate.
* Implement the same algorithm in a HDL, e.g. Verilog, and synthesize
* Write extensive (System)Verilog test benches, which mostly duplicate code from the software test cases in a less friendly development environment
* Run the test benches in simulation and the FPGA to prove functionality
* Iterate.


However, with [https://www.veripool.org/wiki/verilator Verilator], there's a relatively mature tool to turn Verilog modules into compilable C++ code that offers a cycle-accurate simulator of the module.
* Knowledge of C++ and some Python
* Familiarity with graphical APIs (OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal)
* Basic Qt understanding


The goal would be to use integrate verilator into the GNU Radio in a way that allows for rapid prototyping of small, well-defined Verilog modules; the idea is that you can, in the end, just drop your Verilog code file name in a GNU Radio block, and behind the scenes, the C++ code is generated, necessary "adapters" from native (GNU Radio) data types to simulated signals are added, and all is then executed at flow graph run time to process digital signals from within a flow graph.
'''Outcome'''


==== Prerequisites ====
* OOT module with CyberEther sinks
* Support for both GNU Radio main branch and 3.10?


* workable C++ proficiency
'''Project length'''
* basic idea of FPGA development
* Ability to read and write "hello world" verilog modules


==== Outcome ====
Long (350 hours)


* Adapter code to call Verilator-generated Code of modules with fixed interface from within a GNU Radio block's work routine
'''Difficulty'''
* Integration of verilator into either build infrastructure or runtime infrastructure (might require further dependencies, e.g. llvm)
* Examples and software test cases for fundamental blocks, e.g. a FIFO and a integer squarer


==== Mentor ====
Medium


Marcus Müller
'''Mentor(s)'''


Luigi Cruz, Håkon Vågsether


=== Qt5 GUI Integrations ===
=== GPU Accelerated Signal Processing Blocks ===


Idea: Wrap the Qt GUI sinks to appear in QtCreator, including the GUI aspects of their parameterization
GPUs offer incredible capability for accelerating a number of signal processing routines when the calculations can be done in parallel.  Also, GNU Radio 3.10 brought in a "custom buffers" feature which provides support generally for accelerator devices by allowing blocks to have direct access to device memory, finally making accelerator processing feasible through a flowgraph (see [https://fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/radio_gr3_10/ FOSDEM 2022 Presentation].


==== Prerequisites ====
One piece that is missing for GNU Radio is a library of blocks that accelerate common DSP routines.  There are several interesting libraries of GPU accelerated signal processing - primarily using CUDA because of its accessible programming paradigm and the ubiquity of NVIDIA hardware:


* C++, Python proficiency
* [https://github.com/NVIDIA/MatX Matx]
* Qt experienced
* [https://github.com/rapidsai/cusignal cuSignal] (Python signal processing)
* [https://github.com/gnuradio/cusp CUSP]


==== Outcome ====
Integration of any of this functionality, along with additional kernels for signal processing would need to be predicated on using [https://github.com/gnuradio/gr-cuda gr-cuda] custom buffers, and expanding this module as needed


* Qt GUI Sinks usable as widgets in QtCreator (not necessarily already showing an "empty" GUI, just placeholders)
This project can be broken into several subprojects:
* Possible to import generate Qt GUI description file (UIC) into GRC
* Interface to map placeholders from GUI design to Qt GUI sinks in Flow graph
* Integration of that into GRC-generated Python code


==== Mentor ====
* Create gr-matx OOT
** Add Matx Custom Buffer Type (after gr-cuda)
** Create blocks wrapping Matx operations
* Expand gr-cuda
** Additional custom buffer types - pinned, unified
** Create python custom buffers allowing zero copy into python blocks
* Create gr-cuSignal
** Wrap cuSignal functionality (dependent on python zero copy)
* Replicate existing GR blocks as CUDA accelerated (things not in cuSignal or Matx)
** Target for extensions to Matx, cuSignal, or CUSP (within our control)
** FIR Filters
** Polyphase Resampler
** Signal Source
** Moving Average
** Polyphase Clock Sync
** Stream Operators
** ...


Marcus Müller & Sebastian "GRC-Man" Koslowski
'''Prerequisites'''


=== Block header parsing tool ===
* Knowledge of C++ and Python.
* Familiarity with CUDA programming


Rough ideas:
* Python-based tool
* Can extract info from block headers (and maybe, if it has to, also from the .cc file)
** Analyse factory signature ("make function"), analyze getters/setters
** Analyse I/O signature


Utilities:
'''Outcome'''
* Auto-generate YAML files for GRC (would require another tool, also part of this project)
* Facilitate inclusion of GNU Radio with other tools/frameworks


There is some code in gr_modtool which does this, which can be reused and
Depends on chosen subprojects (see above).
extended.


===== Prerequisites =====
'''Project length'''


* Strong knowledge of Python, including Py3k idiosyncrasies
350 hours
* Some text parsing experience
* Some understanding of GNU Radio block structure


===== Outcome =====
'''Difficulty'''


* A tool, written in Python, merged into the GNU Radio source tree, which can turn a block definition into some kind of abstract representation (the design which of is also part of this project)
Medium
* Another tool, which takes the abstract representation, and produces YAML files for GRC.
* An API into calling this which can be used by other tools (external to GNU Radio).
* Make gr_modtool use this tool instead of its builtin code.


===== Mentor(s) =====
'''Mentor(s)'''


Martin Braun, Nicolas Cuervo
Josh Morman


=== GRC: View-Only Mode (Secure) ===
=== GRC and GR 4.0 ===


When a flowgraph from an untrusted source is opened if GRC, arbitrary Python code can be executed. This poses a potential security risk. Storing the all evaluated values of all parameters within a flow graph (.grc) file would allow us to open such flow graphs without compromising security. No code would be have to executed to draw the flow graph and block parameters can be viewed safely. Only if the flow graph is modified the user would have to choose to trust the flow graph thus enabling normal eval operations.
Development of GR 4.0 is progressing quickly. In the current runtime prototype a plugin architecture is used to properly register blocks with the runtime.  
This allows a more dynamic construction of flowgraphs and introspection into the blocks. But this means the current way of assembling a flowgraph by generating a Python or C++
file needs updates.  


===== Prerequisites =====
The idea is to port and change necessary parts of GRC (Qt development version) to use the block registry in the new GNU Radio runtime https://github.com/fair-acc/graph-prototype/ and assemble some of the example flowgraphs defined in GRC files and make them run.
The design for this is not finalized and therefore you will have freedom to propose your ideas.


GRC is implemented using Python. So, Python should be known pretty well.
'''Prerequisites'''


===== Outcome =====
* Good Knowledge of C++ and Python
* Experience with inter-language bindings (not necessarily C++ & Python) is useful
* Basic Qt understanding


Safely view other people's flowgraphs without putting your PC at risk.
'''Outcome'''


===== Mentor(s) =====
* Prototype integration of GRC with the new plugin architecture of GR 4.0


Sebastian Koslowski
'''Project length'''


Long (350 hours)


=== GRC: Bus-Ports reimplementation ===
'''Difficulty'''


Bus ports represent a group of ports on a block that are visually and logically combined into a single (fat) port. Bus ports can be connected them to other matching bus ports by using a bus connection. This feature is part of the GNU Radio 3.7 release series. However, it was removed from the codebase as part of refactoring and development of the 3.8 release. The goal of this project is to reimplement this feature in a more robust and maintainable way.
Challenging


===== Prerequisites =====
'''Mentor(s)'''


GRC is written in Python. So, you should be familiar with that.
Andrej Rode, Josh Morman


===== Outcome =====
=== GRC: Standalone application and pluggable workflows ===


Users can group ports together connect them with a single click.
GNU Radio Companion (GRC) has become useful outside of just GNU Radio, and several projects have forked and maintained their own versions.  Even within GRC, there are different workflows (QT GUI, C++, Bokeh-gui) with different options in the path to render a working flowgraph see [https://github.com/gnuradio/greps/blob/main/grep-0025-grc-out-of-tree.md GREP 0025]. In its most basic form, GRC does the following:


===== Mentor(s) =====
* User sets high level options (type of flowgraph)
* User draws flowgraph graphically with blocks and connections
* Flowgraph uses templates (Mako) to render to a python script


Sebastian Koslowski
The goal of this project is to pull GRC out of the GNU Radio codebase and make the workflow modular.  There should be a high level selection of the workflow that defines the options block.  In our current usage these workflows could be:


* Python QT GUI
* C++ QT GUI
* Python No GUI
* C++ No GUI
* Bokeh GUI


=== GRC: Build-in sub flowgraphs ===
The workflow should map to a set of templates that are used to render the output script.  The definition of the workflow options and the associated templates should be defined in some pluggable manner (files dropped into a directory that GRC sees at runtime), so that "out of tree" workflows can be added easily - because we don't know all the use cases of GRC.


GNU Radio has the hierarchical blocks to build reuseable sub flowgraphs. These hier_blocks can be designed in GRC, however, they have to be compiled to code and GRC bindings, before they can be used in other GRC files. While this is great for reuseablity across flowgraphs, it is quite cumbersome when the main use is to structure a single (larger) flowgraph. The goal of this project is to ease this use-case by embedding sub flowgraphs directly in the main GRC file. Instead of creating bindings and code and then parsing them back again, this process shall be done in-place to allow quickly editing sub flowgraphs on-the-fly.
'''Steps'''
* Move GRC as a separate repository (while maintaining git history)
* Remove dependence of GRC on gnuradio
* Modularized options block
* Modularized templates
* Allow templating with jinja as well
* If time allows:
** Modularize gr-modtool templates as well per [https://github.com/gnuradio/greps/blob/main/grep-0026-modtool-template-rework.md GREP 0026]
** Support multiple domains' workflows.  


===== Prerequisites =====
'''Prerequisites'''


GRC is written in Python which is (almost) all you need to know for this project.
* Knowledge of Python.


===== Outcome =====
'''Outcome'''


A vastly improved workflow for structuring flowgraphs
* GRC as a GNU Radio-independent application
* Support for additional workflows in GRC
* Depends on chosen subprojects (see above).


===== Mentor(s) =====
'''Project length'''


Sebastian Koslowski
350 hours


'''Difficulty'''


=== Extending and Updating gr-radar ===
Medium


gr-radar (https://github.com/kit-cel/gr-radar/) was a great and successful GSoC project that provided a few methods of radar in GNU Radio. This module is heavily used by academics, researchers, cybersecurity folks, and hobbyists. This project would work to improve upon the concepts already in there as well as add more radar techniques.
'''Mentor(s)'''


There are uncountable methods and techniques that could be added to this project, such as:
Josh Morman,
Håkon Vågsether,
Sebastian Koslowski,
?? Someone else that is a GRC Wizard


* SAR / InSAR methods
=== GRC: Build-in sub flowgraphs ===
* Better passive radar support
* Speed camera applications
* Multi-antenna radar techniques
 
===== Prerequisites =====
 
Signal processing and some radar basics are required. Code is written in C++ with some Python on the side, so the student must be able to handle these languages at the least.
 
===== Outcome =====
 
Based on the student's interest, a subset of the radar techniques listed above (or others) are chosen as milestones for this project. All code must be merged back into gr-radar by the end of the summer.
 
===== Mentor(s) =====
 
Stefan Wunsch, Martin Braun
 
 
 
=== QT Widgets Improvements ===
 
The gr-qtgui in-tree component provides some QT widgets for signal visualization. This component needs some improvement to become more useful.<br />
This project is cleanly divided into several sub-projects:
 
* Add new widgets
** Compass display (e.g. for direction-finding applications)
** MPEG display (e.g. for video demod output)
** Matrix sink (e.g. for radar Doppler/range plane visualization, or 2D-equalizer taps visualization)
 
* Improve current widgets
** Better code structure to make the current widgets more manageable, extensible and remove code duplication between widgets
** More Control Panels on other widgets (follow lead on the frequency sink)
** Improve UI, make more intuitive, more power to mouse users
** Set trigger point with mouse
 
* Integration / Support for QT Creator
** QML design
** Allow to build full GUI applications from, say, GRC
 
===== Prerequisites =====
 
Familiarity with QT is essential. Widgets are written in C+'', so some C''+ knowledge is also required. Python skills are highly useful.
 
===== Mentor(s) =====
 
Tim O'Shea
 
=== Android ===
 
One effort of the past years was to improve Android support for GNU Radio. We're getting to a point where we've figured out '''how''' to do it, so the next step is to make it more accessible to users and developers.
 
The Android ecosystem is an entirely different beast from the rest of GNU Radio. To make writing Android/GR apps easy, the following needs to happen (and shall be part of this project):
 
* Improve support for development environment
** Create Dockers for easy start of development
* Visualization classes for PSD, spectrogram and oscilloscope
** Easy reuse in other apps, like the gr-qtgui widgets, but for Android SDKs
* Interactivity concepts
** Gestures and config for radio params (e.g., freq, gain, bandwidth)
** Create an example FM receiver app that allows easy channel selection etc. through motions and gestures
 
===== Prerequisites =====
 
* Some Android experience
* Enjoy writing GUI widgets
* C++/Java experience


===== Mentor(s) =====
GNU Radio has hierarchical blocks as a way to build reuseable sub flowgraphs. These hier_blocks can be designed in GRC, however, they have to be compiled to code and GRC bindings, before they can be used in other GRC files. While this is great for reuseablity across flowgraphs, it is quite cumbersome when the main use is to structure a single (larger) flowgraph. The goal of this project is to ease this use-case by embedding sub flowgraphs directly in the main GRC file. Instead of creating bindings and code and then parsing them back again, this process shall be done in-place to allow quickly editing sub flowgraphs on-the-fly. 


Ben Hilburn
'''Prerequisites'''


=== Filter Design Tool Enhancements ===
* GRC is written in Python which is (almost) all you need to know for this project.


GNU Radio provides many tools to design and use digital filters. Using these tools requires both some expertise in these areas as well as an understanding of the performance on the given platform. One example is the selection between FIR (convolution-based) and FFT (fast convolution-based) filters for different resampling rates. Another example is doing stages of filter decomposition when doing large down-sampling. Included in this is the polyphase filterbanks, which again are provided as primitive blocks that need tweaking to work.
'''Outcome'''


This project is to improve our uses of these tools and blocks to make it more obvious to the users as well as automate some of the decisions for optimally using them. Some pointers:
* A vastly improved workflow for structuring flowgraphs


* When used in GRC, we want to save the results of the tool in a local file or for use in actual blocks.
'''Project length'''
* It still currently runs on PyQWT, which is obsolete and needs to be updated to QT4/QT5
** See https://github.com/trondeau/gnuradio/tree/filter/design_tool_newgui
* Add more support for filter design concepts and other filters.
** Cascaded filters
** Better support for creating PFB filters


===== Prerequisites =====
175 hours


Strong DSP background required. Python and QT knowledge highly useful (at least one of those is a must).
'''Difficulty'''


===== Mentor(s) =====
Easy


Marcus Leech
'''Mentor(s)'''


=== Implement SigMF functionality for GNU Radio ===
Håkon Vågsether


SigMF is the "Signal Metadata Format" that was defined during the 2017 DARPA Hackfest in Brussels. Its purpose is to annotate raw binary dumps of signals with metadata, thus giving meaning to a raw mass of samples.<br />
SigMF is specified and has a minimal reference implementation here: https://github.com/gnuradio/sigmf


GNU Radio needs its own implementation of SigMF that ties into the block structure. The following things need to be written:
=== Revitalize in-tree and out-of-tree (OOT) modules ===


* Source and Sink blocks for SigMF (similar to the current metadata blocks)
A lot has changed since version 3.7, and GNU Radio has made great technical strides the last few years. However, some OOT modules haven't been updated to support the latest versions of GNU Radio, and these modules currently require the user to install an older version of the framework. This is unfortunate, and lowers the useability of GNU Radio as a whole. Some of these modules have been superseded by others, but might still have some blocks or flowgraphs that are useful, and these could be updated and moved in-tree. Some in-tree modules are also in need of attention, like gr-wavelet, which does not have any examples.
* Converters for files generated with the current metadata file formats
* Static analysis tools using SigMF


===== Prerequisites =====
'''Prerequisites'''


Basic understanding of how to write GNU Radio blocks is required. Also, the student needs to explain that she or he has understood the concepts of SigMF, although SigMF is a very simple, JSON-based file format.<br />
* Knowledge of C++, Python and DSP.
Depending on the precise path that the student and the mentor define, experience in GUI development would also be useful.


===== Outcome =====
'''Outcome'''


The source and sink blocks are by the far the most important outcomes of this project. We estimate it would take about a third of the active coding time to implement those, and have them merged around the midterms.<br />
* More example code, tests and flowgraphs for various in-tree modules
This leaves plenty of time for further development. The next most important task are the converters, so existing metadata files will continue to be useful. After that, the student should define own tasks based on their interests. A very relevant problem is the ability to effectively visualize metadata in combination with signals.
* Porting various OOT modules to support recent versions of GNU Radio
* Possibly blocks/flowgraphs from old OOT modules moved in-tree


===== Mentor(s) =====
'''Project length'''


Bastian Bloessl
Small (90 hours) - Medium (175 hours)


=== Statistical Toolbox for GRC ===
'''Difficulty'''


A statistical toolbox for GRC would enable GUI-based statistical analysis. Currently, such analysis can be done by writing an independent program (e.g., with Scipy), but there is no actual integration with GNU Radio. By developing the statistical toolbox, we provide blocks for probability distribution fitting, hypothesis testing, extracting statistical parameters for one-dimensional as well as multi-dimensional data. This would significantly expand GNU Radio users' ability to perform datascience analysis and modeling on signal data.
Easy - Medium


===== Prerequisites =====
'''Mentor(s)'''


Understanding of existing GNU Radio tools (e.g., GRC), GNU Radio Out-of-Tree Modules, and statistics / datascience modeling.
Håkon Vågsether, ?


===== Outcome =====
=== Forward Error Correction in GNU Radio ===  


An OOT module that provides statistical analysis capabilities for GNU Radio.
Over the years many different forward error correction (FEC) methods ( e.g. Polar Encoder/Decoder, LDPC Encoder/Decoder) have been added to GNU Radio.
In other open-source projects (e.g. Aff3ct,  more modern methods and possibly more performant methods have been implemented.


===== Mentor(s) =====
The goal of this project is to update and possibly overhaul the FEC implementations within GNU Radio. Since there are quite some methods in the wild,
we need to coordinate on which methods and other libraries should be included in the comparison. Same goes for the already available methods for error coding in GNU Radio.


Ben Hilburn
'''Prerequisites'''


=== Standardized High Throughput FEC Codes ===
* Knowledge of C++, Python and DSP.
* Interest in information theory and error coding
* No fear of reading & comparing other implementations


Channel coding is essential to modern communications. Also, it is computationally very heavy. As of now, there exist implementations in GNU Radio which are too slow to be integrated into high throughput applications. GNU Radio would benefit from integration of standardized decoders for Turbo and LDPC codes. These codes would only support a certain subset of the whole code class but would be well optimized.
'''Outcome'''


* Updated & polished FEC experience in GNU Radio
* Addition of more performant and updated methods for error coding
* Deletion of possibly redundant and inperformant methods


===== Prerequisites =====
'''Project length'''


Understanding of ''gr-fec'' API. Knowledge on channel coding. Understanding of C++.
Medium (175 hours) - Long (350 hours)


===== Outcome =====
'''Difficulty'''


Standardized Codes, e.g. LTE Turbo Codes, 5G Polar Codes, 5G LDPC Codes, CCITT Convolutional Codes etc. are available in ''gr-fec''. The prefered goal is to find a highly optimized implementation and integrate these into GNU Radio.
Medium - Hard


===== Mentor(s) =====
'''Mentor(s)'''


Johannes Demel
Andrej Rode, ?


=== Digital Pre-Distortion ===
=== CI for maintenance branches and select OOT modules ===


Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) is a technique allowing transmitters to compensate for non-linear responses in their hardware, most notably the power amplifier. This improves SNR and can allow more spectral and power efficient operation of a given set of hardware.
It would be useful to have nightly builds for GNU Radio's maintenance branches (3.8, 3.9, 3.10) and some select OOTs.  


DPD is widely used and is increasingly necessary as many multicarrier signals such as what are seen in DVB and LTE exhibit high peak to average power ratios (PAPRs). DPD implementations are not widely available in the open source community. This is a deficit that this project hopes to correct. Over the course of the project the student would implement standard DPD algorithms in to a GNU Radio out of tree module so that they can be available for use directly or as reference designs.
'''Prerequisites'''


===== Prerequisites =====
* Experience with Docker?
* ?


Workable C++ proficiency, basic knowledge of radio systems, ideally familiarity with GNU Radio and/or Digital Pre-Distortion
'''Outcome'''


===== Outcome =====
* Automated PPAs, Snaps, Flatpak apps


* Implement standard memory-less and memory based DPD algorithms
'''Project length'''
* Implement the training algorithms for such DPD application algorithms.
* Implement a GUI tool or testbench for viewing the AM-AM and AM-PM responses of an amplifier


===== Mentor(s) =====
175 hours


Derek Kozel
'''Difficulty'''


Easy


== Application process ==
'''Mentor(s)'''


* Students interested in participating, read the [[GSoCStudentInfo|student instructions]] and the [[GSoCManifest|rules of conduct]].
Håkon Vågsether, ?
* Please introduce yourself on the [https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio GNU Radio mailing list]
* Fill in the formal application for GNU Radio
* Pick some items from the list above or feel free to suggest another piece of work relevant to this theme. Give us a detailed, week-by-week plan for completing the task over the summer.


== Application process ==
== Old Ideas ==


* Students interested in participating, read the [[GSoCStudentInfo|student instructions]] and the [[GSoCManifest|rules of conduct]].
Feel free to browse [https://wiki.gnuradio.org/index.php?title=OldGSoCIdeas old ideas] from previous years for inspiration.
* Please introduce yourself on the [https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio GNU Radio mailing list]
* Fill in the formal application for GNU Radio
* Pick some items from the list above or feel free to suggest another piece of work relevant to this theme. Give us a detailed, week-by-week plan for completing the task over the summer.

Latest revision as of 16:36, 23 February 2024

Note- also check out Grant Ideas for additional ideas that are more suited towards grant money than GSoC.


Summer of Code 2024: Project ideas list

This is the list of project ideas for the summer of code 2024 within GNU Radio.
Remember that these are ideas and are merely meant as an inspiration for you to write your own proposal.

Students who do not find a fit among these projects are encouraged to engage with us and suggest new ones. The GNU Radio discussion mailing list is the best place to contact all of us. Please do not contact us off-list for the sake of discussing the summer of code, unless you're contacting a mentor listed here to get feedback on a proposal.

Reviewing the Google GSoC FAQ page for a broader understanding of project, mentor, and student responsibilities is recommended.

If you need a USRP or other radio hardware to complete the project, we will be able to arrange something.

Please add ideas to this list (you may cannibalize old ideas, of course!).

Guidelines for good projects (when suggesting projects, please consider these):

  • Clearly defined scope, with a main target that can be done in 3 months
  • Clear benefits for the GNU Radio project
  • Not specific to a certain hardware. No specific embedded devices, either, please.
  • Both OOTs and in-tree improvements are welcome


Graphical interoperability between CyberEther and GNU Radio

The CyberEther project comes with some neat graphical sinks that would be great to have access to in GNU Radio. This project entails creating a new CyberEther GUI workflow much like the gr-bokehgui project, such that users can create flowgraphs with CyberEther sinks. This would allow the user to visualize GNU Radio data streams in one of the high-performance CyberEther plots (lineplot, waterfall, spectrogram, etc).

Prerequisites

  • Knowledge of C++ and some Python
  • Familiarity with graphical APIs (OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal)
  • Basic Qt understanding

Outcome

  • OOT module with CyberEther sinks
  • Support for both GNU Radio main branch and 3.10?

Project length

Long (350 hours)

Difficulty

Medium

Mentor(s)

Luigi Cruz, Håkon Vågsether

GPU Accelerated Signal Processing Blocks

GPUs offer incredible capability for accelerating a number of signal processing routines when the calculations can be done in parallel. Also, GNU Radio 3.10 brought in a "custom buffers" feature which provides support generally for accelerator devices by allowing blocks to have direct access to device memory, finally making accelerator processing feasible through a flowgraph (see FOSDEM 2022 Presentation.

One piece that is missing for GNU Radio is a library of blocks that accelerate common DSP routines. There are several interesting libraries of GPU accelerated signal processing - primarily using CUDA because of its accessible programming paradigm and the ubiquity of NVIDIA hardware:

Integration of any of this functionality, along with additional kernels for signal processing would need to be predicated on using gr-cuda custom buffers, and expanding this module as needed

This project can be broken into several subprojects:

  • Create gr-matx OOT
    • Add Matx Custom Buffer Type (after gr-cuda)
    • Create blocks wrapping Matx operations
  • Expand gr-cuda
    • Additional custom buffer types - pinned, unified
    • Create python custom buffers allowing zero copy into python blocks
  • Create gr-cuSignal
    • Wrap cuSignal functionality (dependent on python zero copy)
  • Replicate existing GR blocks as CUDA accelerated (things not in cuSignal or Matx)
    • Target for extensions to Matx, cuSignal, or CUSP (within our control)
    • FIR Filters
    • Polyphase Resampler
    • Signal Source
    • Moving Average
    • Polyphase Clock Sync
    • Stream Operators
    • ...

Prerequisites

  • Knowledge of C++ and Python.
  • Familiarity with CUDA programming


Outcome

Depends on chosen subprojects (see above).

Project length

350 hours

Difficulty

Medium

Mentor(s)

Josh Morman

GRC and GR 4.0

Development of GR 4.0 is progressing quickly. In the current runtime prototype a plugin architecture is used to properly register blocks with the runtime. This allows a more dynamic construction of flowgraphs and introspection into the blocks. But this means the current way of assembling a flowgraph by generating a Python or C++ file needs updates.

The idea is to port and change necessary parts of GRC (Qt development version) to use the block registry in the new GNU Radio runtime https://github.com/fair-acc/graph-prototype/ and assemble some of the example flowgraphs defined in GRC files and make them run. The design for this is not finalized and therefore you will have freedom to propose your ideas.

Prerequisites

  • Good Knowledge of C++ and Python
  • Experience with inter-language bindings (not necessarily C++ & Python) is useful
  • Basic Qt understanding

Outcome

  • Prototype integration of GRC with the new plugin architecture of GR 4.0

Project length

Long (350 hours)

Difficulty

Challenging

Mentor(s)

Andrej Rode, Josh Morman

GRC: Standalone application and pluggable workflows

GNU Radio Companion (GRC) has become useful outside of just GNU Radio, and several projects have forked and maintained their own versions. Even within GRC, there are different workflows (QT GUI, C++, Bokeh-gui) with different options in the path to render a working flowgraph see GREP 0025. In its most basic form, GRC does the following:

  • User sets high level options (type of flowgraph)
  • User draws flowgraph graphically with blocks and connections
  • Flowgraph uses templates (Mako) to render to a python script

The goal of this project is to pull GRC out of the GNU Radio codebase and make the workflow modular. There should be a high level selection of the workflow that defines the options block. In our current usage these workflows could be:

  • Python QT GUI
  • C++ QT GUI
  • Python No GUI
  • C++ No GUI
  • Bokeh GUI

The workflow should map to a set of templates that are used to render the output script. The definition of the workflow options and the associated templates should be defined in some pluggable manner (files dropped into a directory that GRC sees at runtime), so that "out of tree" workflows can be added easily - because we don't know all the use cases of GRC.

Steps

  • Move GRC as a separate repository (while maintaining git history)
  • Remove dependence of GRC on gnuradio
  • Modularized options block
  • Modularized templates
  • Allow templating with jinja as well
  • If time allows:
    • Modularize gr-modtool templates as well per GREP 0026
    • Support multiple domains' workflows.

Prerequisites

  • Knowledge of Python.

Outcome

  • GRC as a GNU Radio-independent application
  • Support for additional workflows in GRC
  • Depends on chosen subprojects (see above).

Project length

350 hours

Difficulty

Medium

Mentor(s)

Josh Morman, Håkon Vågsether, Sebastian Koslowski, ?? Someone else that is a GRC Wizard

GRC: Build-in sub flowgraphs

GNU Radio has hierarchical blocks as a way to build reuseable sub flowgraphs. These hier_blocks can be designed in GRC, however, they have to be compiled to code and GRC bindings, before they can be used in other GRC files. While this is great for reuseablity across flowgraphs, it is quite cumbersome when the main use is to structure a single (larger) flowgraph. The goal of this project is to ease this use-case by embedding sub flowgraphs directly in the main GRC file. Instead of creating bindings and code and then parsing them back again, this process shall be done in-place to allow quickly editing sub flowgraphs on-the-fly.

Prerequisites

  • GRC is written in Python which is (almost) all you need to know for this project.

Outcome

  • A vastly improved workflow for structuring flowgraphs

Project length

175 hours

Difficulty

Easy

Mentor(s)

Håkon Vågsether


Revitalize in-tree and out-of-tree (OOT) modules

A lot has changed since version 3.7, and GNU Radio has made great technical strides the last few years. However, some OOT modules haven't been updated to support the latest versions of GNU Radio, and these modules currently require the user to install an older version of the framework. This is unfortunate, and lowers the useability of GNU Radio as a whole. Some of these modules have been superseded by others, but might still have some blocks or flowgraphs that are useful, and these could be updated and moved in-tree. Some in-tree modules are also in need of attention, like gr-wavelet, which does not have any examples.

Prerequisites

  • Knowledge of C++, Python and DSP.

Outcome

  • More example code, tests and flowgraphs for various in-tree modules
  • Porting various OOT modules to support recent versions of GNU Radio
  • Possibly blocks/flowgraphs from old OOT modules moved in-tree

Project length

Small (90 hours) - Medium (175 hours)

Difficulty

Easy - Medium

Mentor(s)

Håkon Vågsether, ?

Forward Error Correction in GNU Radio

Over the years many different forward error correction (FEC) methods ( e.g. Polar Encoder/Decoder, LDPC Encoder/Decoder) have been added to GNU Radio. In other open-source projects (e.g. Aff3ct, more modern methods and possibly more performant methods have been implemented.

The goal of this project is to update and possibly overhaul the FEC implementations within GNU Radio. Since there are quite some methods in the wild, we need to coordinate on which methods and other libraries should be included in the comparison. Same goes for the already available methods for error coding in GNU Radio.

Prerequisites

  • Knowledge of C++, Python and DSP.
  • Interest in information theory and error coding
  • No fear of reading & comparing other implementations

Outcome

  • Updated & polished FEC experience in GNU Radio
  • Addition of more performant and updated methods for error coding
  • Deletion of possibly redundant and inperformant methods

Project length

Medium (175 hours) - Long (350 hours)

Difficulty

Medium - Hard

Mentor(s)

Andrej Rode, ?

CI for maintenance branches and select OOT modules

It would be useful to have nightly builds for GNU Radio's maintenance branches (3.8, 3.9, 3.10) and some select OOTs.

Prerequisites

  • Experience with Docker?
  • ?

Outcome

  • Automated PPAs, Snaps, Flatpak apps

Project length

175 hours

Difficulty

Easy

Mentor(s)

Håkon Vågsether, ?

Old Ideas

Feel free to browse old ideas from previous years for inspiration.

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