In May we posted about how Great Scott Gadgets (GSG), the team behind the HackRF SDR and several other popular products, are in the early stages of developing a new type of SDR product called the "Universal Radio Test Instrument" or URTI for short.

Thank you to a few blog readers for pointing out that earlier this month the URTI GitHub lab-notes were updated with a progress report, and some further information about the architecture. The URTI will be split into a mainboard PCB, and a user interface PCB. The former will contain the USB interface, FPGA computing, and radio, and the latter will run a display and tactile controls. 

For the radio components, the team appear to be using similar components to what is used in the HackRF. They have selected the MAX5865 as their analog to digital converter (ADC) chip which is a faster sampling version of the MAX5864 which is used in the HackRF. They've also chosen either the MAX2831 or MAX2830 as their quadrature transmitter, and the MAX2120 as their quadrature receiver. They are also using the RFFC5072 chip as their mixer. These are again similar or the same as parts used in the HackRF.

In the update they also make notes on their SMA connector selection, PCB trace width selection, and their selection of Unun, RF switch, clock generator and RF limiter parts. They also note progress on their software which will provide a DSP library for the FPGA, and their tests of a display via a hand held game console.

In the next stage of development the team will be designing and assembling the mainboard to try and quickly make a platform available for software developers to get started on.