LimeSDR, standalone mode

Hi, just want to ask if LimeSDR is able to run at a standalone mode, i.e., without connecting to the PC.

If this is possible, is there any way to store the data (e.g., channel measurements data) in the LimeSDR and later transfer to the PC.

Thanks.

If you look at the Bill Of Materials, basic block diagram and schematic for the LimeSDR, you quickly come to the conclusion that there are five locations where data is stored between power cycles. Three eeproms and two flash chips:

IC2   M24128   IC EEPROM 128KBIT 1MHZ 8TSSOP   LMS EEPROM
IC3   24FC512  IC EEPROM 512KBIT 1MHZ 8TSSOP   LMS EEPROM
IC10  M25P16   IC FLASH 16MBIT 75MHZ 8SO       FPGA AS FLASH
IC15  M25P40   IC FLASH 4MBIT 75MHZ 8SO        FX3 FLASH
IC18  M24128   IC EEPROM 128KBIT 1MHZ 8TSSOP   I2C EEPROM

The only chip I suspect where you may be able to store a few bytes could possibly be IC18 (see page 12 of 15 of the schematic), the I2C EEPROM (I2C Address: [1 0 1 0 0 0 0 RW]).

And then the next question becomes can you distil whatever information you are collecting in real time into a concise enough form using the resources available inside the LimeSDR to fit into whatever free space is available within that chip.

Can data be piped to a USB drive?

Not possible without additional hardware. As an example, you may transfer the data via USB to RPi, for instance. And then write to USB Flash (although the data throughput not gonna be high). But I do not know if this is “standalone”.

In this case, I presume raspberry pi is acting as the host.

Thank you for the information. But the size of the storage is too small for my application.

I would look into using a cheap sub $100 Windows tablet (Picking one that it is possible to install a real linux like Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux [or any real Linux other than Android] on e.g. a few of the Teclast tablets). Because even your application was possible standalone you will still need a mobile power source (which a tablet may or may not be able to provide). The cheap tablets will probably only support USB 2.0, so that could be a major issue for your application. But I’m just pointing at where I would start to look into making a cheap standalone solution.

Using the tablet as the host is really a good idea. Many thanks for the suggestion. Will have a look at the possibility.

I use a Odroid-c2 & x2 … USB2

get an odroid xu4 … has two usb 3 ports