Communications Toolbox
Design and simulate the physical layer of communications systems
Communications Toolbox™ provides algorithms and apps for the analysis, design, end-to-end simulation, and verification of communications systems. Toolbox algorithms including channel coding, modulation, MIMO, and OFDM enable you to compose and simulate a physical layer model of your standard-based or custom-designed wireless communications system.
The toolbox provides a waveform generator app, constellation and eye diagrams, bit-error-rate, and other analysis tools and scopes for validating your designs. These tools enable you to generate and analyze signals, visualize channel characteristics, and obtain performance metrics such as error vector magnitude (EVM). The toolbox includes SISO and MIMO statistical and spatial channel models. Channel profile options include Rayleigh, Rician, and WINNER II models. It also includes RF impairments, including RF nonlinearity and carrier offset and compensation algorithms, including carrier and symbol timing synchronizers. These algorithms enable you to realistically model link-level specifications and compensate for the effects of channel degradations.
Using Communications Toolbox with RF instruments or hardware support packages, you can connect your transmitter and receiver models to radio devices and verify your designs with over-the-air testing.
Get Started:
Wireless Waveform Generator App
Generate, impair, visualize, and export modulated waveforms, including OFDM, QAM, PSK, 5G, WLAN, LTE, and Bluetooth®.
Standards-Based Waveforms
Generate waveforms compliant with various standards, including DVB, MIL-STD 188, television and FM broadcasting, ZigBee®, NFC, WPAN 802.15.4, cdma2000, and 1xEV-DO signals.
RF Propagation
Display RF coverage on a map. Calculate and display the viewshed, which accounts for the local terrain. Compute SINR for a coverage area. Calculate received signal strength in urban scenarios. Develop a channel impulse response from a ray tracing analysis.
Channel Modeling
Simulate channel noise and fading models, including AWGN, multipath Rayleigh fading, Rician fading, and WINNER II spatial channel models.
Modulation and Channel Coding
Specify system components for channel coding (including convolutional, turbo, LDPC, and TPC), modulation (including OFDM, QAM, APSK), scrambling, interleaving, and filtering.
Receiver Design and Synchronization
Model and simulate front-end receiver and synchronization components, including AGC, I/Q imbalance correction, DC blocking, and timing and carrier synchronization.
Link-Level Performance Metrics
Characterize link-level performance with BER, BLER, PER, and throughput measures.
AI for Wireless
Use AI for wireless challenges such as modulation scheme identification, RF fingerprinting, spectrum monitoring, and signal classification. Create synthetic signals with RF impairments to train AI models. Capture over-the-air signals with SDR hardware for training or testing purposes.
RF and Antenna Modeling
Model effects of RF impairments, including nonlinearity, phase noise, I/Q imbalance, thermal noise, and phase and frequency offsets. Compensate for those impairments.
MIMO Techniques
Simulate the effects of massive MIMO hybrid beamforming. Model transmit and receive diversity, and simulate effects of space-time block coding and spatial multiplexing on system performance. Estimate and equalize MIMO fading channels.
Supported Radios
Connect your waveforms to a variety of supported software-defined radios (SDRs) including ADALM-PLUTO®, RTL-SDR, USRP® and Xilinx® Zynq®-based radios.
Transmitters and Receivers
Process captured or live over-the-air wireless signals for applications including airplane tracking with ADS-B Signals, automatic meter reading, FM broadcasting with RBDS, and FRS/GMRS receiver.
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