A Python wrapper for librtlsdr (a driver for Realtek RTL2832U based SDR's)
A Python wrapper for librtlsdr (a driver for Realtek RTL2832U based SDR's)
pyrtlsdr is a simple Python interface to devices supported by the RTL-SDR project, which turns certain USB DVB-T dongles employing the Realtek RTL2832U chipset into low-cost, general purpose software-defined radio receivers. It wraps many of the functions in the librtlsdr library including asynchronous read support and also provides a more Pythonic API.
librtlsdr:
pyrtlsdr can be installed by downloading the source files and running
python setup.py install, or using pip and
pip install pyrtlsdr.
All functions in librtlsdr are accessible via librtlsdr.py and a Pythonic interface is available in rtlsdr.py (recommended). Some documentation can be found in docstrings in the latter file.
from rtlsdr import RtlSdrsdr = RtlSdr()
configure device
sdr.sample_rate = 2.048e6 # Hz sdr.center_freq = 70e6 # Hz sdr.freq_correction = 60 # PPM sdr.gain = 'auto'
print(sdr.read_samples(512))
from pylab import * from rtlsdr import *sdr = RtlSdr()
configure device
sdr.sample_rate = 2.4e6 sdr.center_freq = 95e6 sdr.gain = 4
samples = sdr.read_samples(256*1024) sdr.close()
use matplotlib to estimate and plot the PSD
psd(samples, NFFT=1024, Fs=sdr.sample_rate/1e6, Fc=sdr.center_freq/1e6) xlabel('Frequency (MHz)') ylabel('Relative power (dB)')
show()
See the files 'demo_waterfall.py' and 'test.py' for more examples.
(added in v2.5.6) ```python from rtlsdr import RtlSdr
serialnumbers = RtlSdr.getdeviceserialaddresses()
deviceindex = RtlSdr.getdeviceindexby_serial('00000001')
sdr = RtlSdr(device_index)
sdr = RtlSdr(serial_number='00000001') ```
Most devices by default have the same serial number: '0000001'. This can be set to a custom value by using the rtl_eeprom utility packaged with
librtlsdr.
Two new submodules are available for testing: rtlsdraio, which adds native Python 3 asynchronous support (asyncio module), and rtlsdrtcp which adds a TCP server/client for accessing a device over the network. See the respective modules in the rtlsdr folder for more details and feel free to test and report any bugs!
Note that the rtlsdraio module is automatically imported and adds
stream()and
stop()methods to the normal
RtlSdrclass. It also requires the new
async/
awaitsyntax introduced in Python 3.5+.
The syntax is basically:
import asyncio from rtlsdr import RtlSdrasync def streaming(): sdr = RtlSdr()
async for samples in sdr.stream(): # do something with samples # ... # to stop streaming: await sdr.stop() # done sdr.close()
loop = asyncio.get_event_loop() loop.run_until_complete(streaming())
The
RtlSdrTcpServerclass is meant to be connected physically to an SDR dongle and communicate with an instance of
RtlSdrTcpClient. The client is intended to function as closely as possible to the base RtlSdr class (as if it had a physical dongle attatched to it).
Both of these classes have the same arguments as the base
RtlSdrclass with the addition of
hostnameand
port: ```python server = RtlSdrTcpServer(hostname='192.168.1.100', port=12345) server.run_forever()
```python # On another machine (typically) client = RtlSdrTcpClient(hostname='192.168.1.100', port=12345) client.center_freq = 2e6 data = client.read_samples()
On platforms where the
librtlsdrlibrary cannot be installed/compiled, it is possible to import the
RtlSdrTcpClientonly by setting the environment variable
"RTLSDR_CLIENT_MODE"to
"true". If this is set, no other modules will be available.
Feature added in v0.2.4
matplotlib is also useful for plotting data. The librtlsdr binaries (rtlsdr.dll in Windows and librtlsdr.so in Linux) should be in the pyrtlsdr directory, or a system path. Note that these binaries may have additional dependencies.
There are a few remaining functions in librtlsdr that haven't been wrapped yet. It's a simple process if there's an additional function you need to add support for, and please send a pull request if you'd like to share your changes.
Some operating systems (Linux, OS X) seem to result in libusb buffer issues when performing small reads. Try reading 1024 (or higher powers of two) samples at a time if you have problems.
If you're having librtlsdr import errors:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib. See this issue for more details.
All of the code contained here is licensed by the GNU General Public License v3.
Credit to dbasden for his earlier wrapper python-librtlsdr and all the contributers on GitHub.
Copyright (C) 2013 by Roger https://github.com/roger-