WARPLab Reference Design: Downloads

The latest WARPLab Reference Design is available for download below. The source and binary files are distributed under the terms of the WARP License.

Previous releases of the reference design are available in the WARPLab change log.

Refer to the Quick Start guide to get started with the reference design.

7.3.0 Release:

Download: ​WARPLab_Reference_Design_7.3.0.zip

Release Details:

Hardware	Release	Date Posted	SVN Rev.	ISE Ver.	Arch	MATLAB Ver.	RF Interface Support
WARP v3	7.3.0	26-Aug-2013	2180	14.4	MB/AXI	2009b or later	1-2: WARP v3 on-board interfaces 3-4: Requires FMC-RF-2X245
WARP v2	7.3.0	26-Aug-2013	2180	14.4	PPC/PLB	2009b or later	1-2: Radios in slots 2 & 3 3-4: Radios in slots 1 & 4

• Requires use of WARPXilnet library 3.02.a

• Improved Read IQ / Write IQ performance by over 10x with a new Transport layer: wl_transport_eth_udp_mex​.
  • This uses the MATLAB EXecutable format, or MEX. To compile the transport for your platform, please refer to the MEX Compilation Guide.
  • To see the performance improvements, please refer to the benchmarks
• Updated FPGA HW design
  • Updated the WARPLab Buffers core (w3_warplab_buffers_axiw_v2_03_a) which moved the memories outside of the core for the Read / Write IQ samples
    • Allowed for the use of the DMA for sample transfers vs memcpy
  • Updated bus architecture to improve performance
• Added wl_benchmark utility
  • Allows user to do performance testing of Read IQ / Write IQ on their system
• Fixed bugs:
  • Addressed WARPLab 7.2.0 issue where there were checksum mismatches in Write IQ which would revert the Transport to "slow write" and reduce performance.

• NOTE:
  • PNET will be deprecated in the WARPLab 7.4.0 release. Please use the new wl_mex_udp_transport instead.

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Reference Design Archive

The WARPLab reference design is packaged as a .zip file with the full source code and compiled bitstreams for the reference design. You can view the latest source code in the repository (ResearchApps/PHY/WARPLAB/WARPLab7). Please note the code in the repository is under active development.

The contents of the WARPLab reference design .zip file are explained below.

Bitstreams_Reference

Bitstreams are fully-built designs that are ready to be downloaded onto WARP hardware. Files ending with the extension '.bit' may be downloaded using the Xilinx tool iMPACT. Files ending with the extension .bin may loaded onto an SD card so that the WARP v3 hardware will automatically be programmed whenever it is powered on and has the SD card inserted. Details on how to configure an SD card with a '.bin' file are provided here. For WARP v2 hardware, compact flash cards may be loaded with the provided .ace files for similar functionality (instructions provided here).

• w3: WARP v3 FPGA bitstreams (see SD config howto for help using the .bin file)
• w2: WARP v2 FPGA bitstreams (see CF config howto for help using the .ace file)

EDK_Projects

This folder contains EDK projects for various hardware configurations. The WARPLab FPGA design is built with the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) software. The hardware design is constructed and implemented in EDK Xilinx Platform Studio (XPS). The software design, running in the MicroBlaze processor, is built in the Xilinx SDK. Opening these EDK projects requires a copy of the WARP edk_user_repository at the SVN revision in the table above.

If you want to use (but not modify) the reference FPGA design, you only need a bitstream and the reference M code. If you want to modify the MicroBlaze/PPC C code, you can download an EDK project in this folder, but only modify the SDK project contained therein. To modify the FPGA hardware design, you will need to modify the XPS project. The WARPLab FPGA design uses custom peripherals designed in Xilinx System Generator, including the warplab_buffers core. You will need MATLAB, Simulink and System Generator to modify these cores.

Each of these EDK projects are a combination of an XPS project along with Eclipse software projects that can be imported into an SDK workspace. These software projects are present in the 'SDK_Workspace' subfolder of every XPS project -- we recommend using this folder as the location of the SDK Workspace. These projects can then be imported "in place" and will not need to be copied.

• w3: WARP v3 EDK projects for the 2-radio (2RF) and 4-radio (4RF) WARPLab Reference Designs
• w2: WARP v2 EDK projects for the 2-radio (2RF) and 4-radio (4RF) WARPLab Reference Designs

M_Code_Examples

This folder contains example WARPLab scripts that are compatible with this release of WARPLab. Explanations of these scripts are available here.

M_Code_Reference

This folder contains all of the supporting files needed for WARPLab to run on a host PC with MATLAB. When downloading a new Reference Design Release, users will need to run the wl_setup.m script in this folder.