Starting Point
Setting up Libre-FDATool
Just as the propietary original tool depends on Matlab and its associated packages and toolboxes, Libre-FDATool internal gears rely on a complete Python based toolchain. In order to operate in a correct way, a compatible install of Python, including speciallized packages & third party tools, must be available in the host system.
Follow next steps for checking if your development machine fulfill the requirements for running libre-fdatool or in order to get instructions for completing your Python toolchain or deploying a new one from the ground up.
First steps with Libre-FDATool
Libre-fdatool offers both a simple GUI graphical interface & a collection of modules that can be accesed from Python shell or scripts.
As being in a very early development stage, here you'll progressively find demos & examples of the upcoming libre-fdatools functionalities.
In addition, you'll find general resources on how Python can be a highly productive environment for building signal processing hardware using the toolchain in which Libre-FDATool relies.
Development Workstation
One of the main targets of Libre-FDATool is to be easily deployed over the widest range of Python versions accross different Operative Systems.
In order to test different OS+Python setup versions, we are working with virtualized guest machines over a very stable Scientific Linux OS. The default virtualization tool chosen is VirtualBox, which is released under GPL license.
Hardware Validation
No HDL code construction can be considered well tested if has not been synthesized and deployed over real silicon.
For building the laboratory testbench for Libre-FDATool, a Zedboard All-Programmable SoC development kit acts as the core DUT. On the board, a Xilinx Zynq FPGA use its integrated dual core Cortex-A9 for making operations using the synthesized filter HDL code (i.e. injection of real physical data captured by the on-chip XADC peripheral).