RTL-SDR.com's KrakenSDR Offers Five Software-Defined Radios in a Single, Passively-Cooled System
Next-generation replacement for the KerberosSDR adds a new radio and a range of improvements for direction-finding and passive radar.
RTL-SDR.com has confirmed that its KrakenSDR, a software-defined radio (SDR) combining five RTL-SDR receivers with a common clock in a single unit, is launching on Crowd Supply in the very near future.
"A coherent radio allows for very interesting applications, such as radio direction finding, passive radar, and beamforming," the company writes of the project. "You might be interested in KrakenSDR if you are a ham radio operator participating in a fox hunt or monitoring repeater abuse, a professional RF engineer tracking down sources of noise and illegal broadcasts, an instructor demonstrating RF fundamentals, an amateur radio astronomer looking to increase image resolution, a search and rescue team locating a disaster victim, an owner of a very large property monitoring its use, or a conservation group tracking tagged animals outside of network coverage."
The KrakenSDR isn't RTL-SDR.com's first multi-radio design: "Back at the end of 2018 we successfully crowdfunded KerberosSDR on Indiegogo," the company explains, "which was our first coherent capable RTL-SDR that consisted of four RTL-SDRs on a common clock, with built in noise source and phase synchronization hardware. KerberosSDR enabled interesting experiments such as radio direction finding and passive radar to be implemented at a much lower cost.
"KerberosSDR has taught us many things, and we're now working on the next iteration which will be a significantly refined version known as 'KrakenSDR.' KrakenSDR will be a five channel common clocked RTL-SDR, with built in noise source and automatic phase synchronization hardware."
As well as a fifth receiver, the KrakenSDR includes built-in switching hardware and updated software for automatic sample and phase calibration, dramatically improved direction-finding capabilities, a switch to USB Type-C connectivity, a lower-noise PCB, software-controlled per-port bias tees, and a CNC-milled enclosure which doubles as a heatsink to keep the hardware cool.
The company has confirmed that the hardware is based on the R820T2 RTL-SDR, offering a 24-1766 MHz tuning range, and that the core digital signal processing (DSP) software is open source and tuned for use on the Raspberry Pi 4 family of single-board computers. Additionally, a direction-finding app for Android devices will be included, free for non-commercial use.
More information on the project is available on Crowd Supply, where you can sign up to be notified with the crowdfunding campaign goes live.