A hands-on student, start-up and early-career engineering challenge built on Emerson/NI USRP software
defined radios, programmed with NI LabVIEW or GNU Radio
Section 01
Purpose: A challenge format modelled on the hardware-loan radar challenges run
alongside previous IEEE Radar Conferences, re-built around the Emerson/NI USRP portfolio and organised
by the NI India team. Hardware specifications should be confirmed against current NI datasheets before
publication.
Overview
The IEEE Radar Challenge invites teams of students, researchers, start-ups and early-career engineers to
design, build and demonstrate a working radar or EW concept on NI USRP software defined radio hardware.
Selected teams receive USRP hardware and supporting accessories on loan, technical mentoring from
Emerson/NI, and the opportunity to present their results to an expert jury at IEEE RadarConf’27,
Sheraton Grand Hotel & Convention Centre Bengaluru Whitefield.
The challenge has three goals: to build practical RF and signal-processing skills on the same class of
hardware used in professional radar and EW prototyping; to grow an open library of reference projects
for the radar community; and to connect high-performing teams with the defence and aerospace R&D
ecosystem.
At a glance
Item
Detail
Organiser
IEEE RadarConf’27 committee in association with NI India team (Emerson/NI)
Platform
NI USRP software defined radios, programmed with NI LabVIEW or GNU Radio
Teams
About 5 teams selected (up to 10 if hardware and mentoring capacity allow); 3–4 members
per team
Eligibility
Academia, start-ups and industry; all outputs published openly
Project duration
About 5 months of build time (kit received January 2027, final event May 2027)
Proposal deadline
November 30, 2026
Final event
IEEE RadarConf’27, Bengaluru, 1–6 May 2027; challenge session most likely Monday 3 May
2027 [to be confirmed]
Awards
1st, 2nd and 3rd place, plus optional special mentions
Section 02
Why USRP
USRP devices combine wideband RF front ends, FPGA processing and a host software stack in one platform,
which lets teams move from simulation to over-the-air or cabled experiments without designing custom
hardware. Multi-channel, phase-coherent models open up beamforming, direction finding and MIMO radar,
while the open UHD driver and RFNoC FPGA framework allow real-time processing to be pushed into the
FPGA.
Hardware tiers
The USRP family spans several capability levels. Teams state a preferred tier in their proposal, but the
NI/committee team makes the final hardware match for each selected proposal, based on what the
project needs and on kit availability. Specifications must be confirmed against current datasheets.
The challenge is built around NI LabVIEW with the NI-USRP driver, and GNU Radio with the open-source UHD driver. NI mentoring focuses
on these two paths. Teams may also use UHD directly (C++/Python) or MATLAB/Simulink but should state
their choice in the proposal.
Section 03
Who Can Participate
Team size: 3 to 4 members per team, so that all teams are comparable in effort and
scope.
Eligibility: teams from academia (undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students, and
faculty-mentored research groups), start-ups and industry (early-career engineers) are welcome.
Mixed teams are allowed.
Open results for everyone: all challenge outputs (code, data, reports,
presentations, posters and videos) must be shared openly at the end of the challenge. Proposals must
therefore not rely on proprietary IP or commercially confidential content. This applies equally to
start-up and industry teams.
Each team should name a faculty advisor or senior technical lead who takes responsibility for the
hardware and for lab safety.
At least one team member must be able to attend the final event in person at the conference venue,
Sheraton Grand Whitefield Bengaluru Hotel & Convention Centre.
Teams outside India may apply. Hardware is shipped only where it may lawfully be exported, and
customs feasibility is considered during selection (see Sections 6.4 and 13).
Team name, institution or company, country, and a link to the team’s code repository (GitHub, GitLab
or similar).
Name, email and a three-to-four-line profile of each team member and the faculty advisor or
technical lead.
A project description of no more than two pages covering the objective, the technical approach, the
preferred USRP tier and why, the software path (LabVIEW or GNU Radio), and the expected measurable
result.
A list of the accessories the team would like to borrow from NI (Section 6.1) and what the team will
provide itself (Section 6.2).
A short risk and feasibility note what will be demonstrated if the stretch goals are not reached,
and how the team will test safely (cabled, shielded or licensed over-the-air).
Radar Challenge Proposal Template
Kindly download the official Radar Challenge Proposal Template
and use the prescribed format to prepare and submit your team proposal.
The problem statement is open. The themes in Section 5 are
examples to show what is possible; teams are responsible for coming up with their own proposal.
Ambitious ideas are welcome, but proposals are judged partly on whether they are feasible on the USRP
platform and can realistically be delivered in about five months.
Section 05
Suggested Project Themes (Examples)
The themes below are illustrative examples only. Teams may pick one, combine several (for example a
radar from 5.1 tested against a target simulator from 5.5), or propose their own radar or EW
concept. Each example is scoped to be achievable by a team of 3–4 in about five months (January to
April 2027), with a stretch goal for stronger teams. Section 6 lists the hardware NI can lend and
what teams need to provide.
10 PROJECT THEMES
Build a working monostatic or quasi-monostatic radar on USRP,
generating
the waveform on transmit and producing range and range–Doppler maps from the received
echoes.
Core scope
Range and velocity measurement of a corner reflector and a moving target (person,
fan,
toy car), with measured resolution compared to theory.
Stretch goal
Real-time range–Doppler processing in the FPGA via RFNoC; CFAR detection and simple
tracking.
Suggested hardware
Entry (B-Series) or Advanced (N-Series). NI can lend standard antennas or cables and
attenuators; teams provide corner reflectors and targets.
Use multiple phase-aligned USRP channels as a small receive or
transmit–receive array to estimate target angle and steer beams digitally.
Core scope
Channel calibration, angle-of-arrival estimation (e.g. delay-and-sum, MUSIC) and a
measured beam pattern for a 4-element receive array.
Stretch goal
MIMO virtual-array radar with orthogonal transmit waveforms, or adaptive nulling of
an
interferer.
Suggested hardware
Advanced (N-Series) or Wideband (X-Series); OctoClock-G for multi-unit
synchronisation if
needed.
Detect moving targets using existing broadcast or communication
signals
(FM radio, DVB-T, cellular, Wi-Fi) instead of transmitting, with a reference channel and
a
surveillance channel.
Core scope
Cross-ambiguity processing with direct-path cancellation and detection of vehicles or
people in a bistatic range–Doppler map.
Stretch goal
Multi-illuminator fusion or bistatic tracking of drones or aircraft.
Build a radar that senses spectrum occupancy and adapts its waveform,
band or timing to coexist with a communications link sharing the same spectrum.
Core scope
Demonstrate a sense-then-adapt loop with a USRP radar and a USRP comms link,
measuring
radar detection performance and comms throughput with and without adaptation.
Stretch goal
Learning-based adaptation policy, or coexistence with multiple communications users.
Suggested hardware
Advanced (N-Series) or Wideband (X-Series).
Turn the USRP into a radar target simulator that captures an incoming
radar signal and retransmits it with controlled delay, Doppler shift and amplitude to
create
synthetic targets.
Core scope
Generate one or more synthetic targets at programmed range and velocity against a
radar
built in theme 5.1, connected by cable, and verify accuracy.
Stretch goal
Low-latency FPGA implementation, multiple targets, or simple RCS/scintillation
models.
Suggested hardware
Wideband (X-Series) recommended; Advanced (N-Series) for lower bandwidths. Cables and
attenuators required.
Create a closed test environment in which one USRP acts as the radar
and
another generates jamming (noise, spot, barrage, deceptive), then implement and evaluate
counter-countermeasures.
Core scope
Quantify radar degradation under at least two jamming types and show measurable
recovery
with at least one ECCM technique (e.g. frequency agility, pulse compression gain,
sidelobe blanking, adaptive filtering).
Stretch goal
Adaptive or learning-based ECCM; jammer-type recognition by the radar.
Suggested hardware
Advanced (N-Series) or Wideband (X-Series). Conducted/cabled or shielded setup only;
cables, attenuators and combiners required.
Collect and label real radar or RF data captured on USRP hardware and
train machine-learning models to detect and classify targets or emitters.
Core scope
A labelled dataset of real captures (e.g. micro-Doppler of drones, people, vehicles,
or
radar emitter types) and a classifier with reported accuracy on held-out data.
Stretch goal
On-line inference running alongside live capture; publication of the dataset for the
community.
Suggested hardware
Any tier, depending on data source.
Build a stepped-frequency continuous-wave (SFCW) or wideband GPR that
detects and locates objects buried in soil, sand or concrete.
Core scope
A sandbox test bed with buried metallic and non-metallic objects at known depths,
producing B-scan images and depth estimates compared with ground truth.
Stretch goal
Migration processing for sharper images, 3-D C-scans from a gridded survey, or
ML-based
classification of buried objects.
Suggested hardware
Advanced (N-Series) or Wideband (X-Series) for their low-frequency coverage; teams
supply
suitable ground-coupled antennas (e.g. bowtie or Vivaldi) and the sandbox.
Form high-resolution radar images by synthesising a large aperture:
SAR
by moving the radar along a known path, ISAR by using the rotation of the target itself.
Core scope
Rail-mounted SAR imaging of a scene of corner reflectors, and/or ISAR imaging of an
object on a turntable, with measured cross-range resolution compared with theory.
Stretch goal
Autofocus algorithms, imaging from a moving vehicle or drone, or
polarimetric/interferometric extensions.
Suggested hardware
Entry (B-Series) for basic FMCW SAR; Wideband (X-Series) for finer range resolution.
Teams provide the rail or turntable.
Use one waveform, such as OFDM, to carry data to a receiver and at
the
same time sense targets from its echoes, demonstrating a single radio that communicates
and
senses.
Core scope
An OFDM link between two USRPs carrying data, with the transmitter also producing
range–Doppler maps from reflections; report both bit error rate and sensing
accuracy.
Stretch goal
Study of the trade-off between data rate and sensing resolution, multi-antenna ISAC
with
beamforming, or 5G NR-like waveform structures.
Suggested hardware
Advanced (N-Series) or Wideband (X-Series).
Important Safety & Operating Conditions
Important: themes 5.5 and 5.6 involve deception and jamming signals. All such
work
must be carried out entirely in a conducted (cabled, with attenuators) or shielded-enclosure
setup.
Over-the-air jamming or interference is not permitted under any circumstances.
Note for GPR and SAR: these themes radiate wideband signals over the air. Teams
must
keep transmit power low and stay within permitted bands or operate under an experimental
licence, as
described in Section 13.
Section 06
Hardware, Accessories and Support
Each selected team receives a USRP matched to its proposal plus the standard accessories it needs.
Items
are lent subject to availability; the final kit list is agreed with each team at selection. Links
point
to the product pages so teams can check specifications when writing their proposal.
Standard antennas only; specialised antennas (horn, Vivaldi, bowtie,
arrays)
are
provided by teams. Teams can generate their own gerber, fabricate and
integrate
with
USRP’s.
A host PC or laptop meeting the USRP requirements (USB 3.0 for B-Series; 10 GbE or
faster
for N- and X-Series).
Project-specific antennas and RF parts beyond the standard kit, such as horn or
Vivaldi
antennas, amplifiers, LNAs and filters.
Test fixtures and targets: corner reflectors, rails, turntables, sandboxes, and a
shielded
enclosure where needed.
Lab space, lab safety arrangements and any spectrum licence needed for over-the-air
tests.
A kick-off session at kit delivery covering setup, the getting-started examples and
the
two supported software paths.
An assigned NI application engineer as mentor, with fortnightly check-ins.
Access to NI and Ettus documentation, the Ettus Knowledge Base and community forums
(see
Section 14).
Kits are shipped after selection in mid-December 2026; in practice teams should
expect to
receive them in early January 2027.
Shipping within India is straightforward. Shipments to the EU and the US are expected
to
be manageable; other destinations may be more complex because of customs clearance,
duties and export rules.
Shipping and customs feasibility for each team’s location is assessed as part of
proposal
evaluation. Teams are responsible for returning hardware at the end of the challenge
where required (Section 7).
Section 07
Selection and Hardware Loan
Hardware and mentoring capacity are limited, so proposals are reviewed and about 5 teams are
selected (up to 10 if capacity allows).
Proposals are evaluated on feasibility on the USRP platform, technical merit, innovation, team
capability, and shipping and customs feasibility.
The NI/committee team matches each selected proposal to a USRP tier and accessory kit (Section 6).
All applicants are informed of the outcome by mid-December 2026.
Selected teams receive a kit on loan: the software defined radio plus the cables, antennas(optional)
or attenuators appropriate to the project.
Teams that complete all milestones and present at the final event may [retain the hardware for
continued teaching and research / be offered preferential academic pricing] [program owner to
decide].
Section 08
Timeline and Milestones
The practical build window is about five months, from kit receipt in January to the final event in May
2027.
When
Milestone
Deliverable
Mid-Nov 2026
Proposal deadline
Proposal submitted as described in Section 4.
Mid-Dec 2026
Selection and kit shipping
Teams notified; hardware matched to each proposal and shipped.
Early Jan 2027
Kit receipt and onboarding
Install the chosen software stack, run the NI getting-started examples, confirm
transmit/receive loopback, and attend the kick-off session.
End Jan 2027
Platform check-out: baseline ranging
Measure range to a corner reflector or metal plate at several known distances (e.g. 1 m
to 10 m), or through calibrated cable delays, and report accuracy and resolution against
theory. This is a calibration and learning step that gives every team a common reference
result; it is not an elimination round.
Feb–Mar 2027
Project build
Develop the proposed project with fortnightly check-ins with the assigned NI mentor;
share progress in the team repository.
Early Apr 2027
Interim review
Short written update and draft demo video; mentors confirm readiness for the final
event.
Mid-Apr 2027
Final submission
Demo video proving the system and proposed idea work, presentation and/or poster, and
code and documentation published [exact date to be confirmed].
May 2027
Final event at RadarConf’27
Presentation and/or poster session and jury evaluation; most likely Monday 3 May 2027
[to be confirmed].
Section 09
Final Demonstration and Judging
Each team submits three things:
A demo video that proves the system and the proposed idea work on USRP hardware. The video is
the
main evidence of live operation, since on-site RF transmission at the venue may not be practical.
A presentation and/or poster for the challenge session at the conference.
An open repository with code, data and documentation.
The challenge session will be scheduled according to the conference programme and room availability. It
is most likely to be held on Monday 3 May 2027, with no room availability issues expected; this will be
confirmed in due course. Each team presents for [10] minutes followed by questions, covering the
baseline ranging result, the project outcome and lessons learned.
Teams are ranked by a jury of [Emerson/NI application engineers, academic experts and invited
defence/aerospace R&D representatives] using the following indicative criteria:
Novel use of the USRP platform, waveforms or algorithms
Use of the platform
15%
Effective use of multi-channel coherence, FPGA/RFNoC or real-time processing
Results and demonstration
20%
Working, repeatable demonstration (video and presentation) against stated objectives
Documentation and openness
10%
Clear repository, reproducible code, quality of presentation or poster
Section 10
Prizes and Recognition
1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards, plus [special mention, e.g. Best EW Concept].
Certificates for all teams completing the challenge.
Opportunity to feature in NI customer stories, application notes or webinars.
[Optional] Internship or project interviews with NI or participating partner organisations.
Section 11
Publicity and Outreach
The challenge will be announced and promoted through:
The IEEE RadarConf’27 conference website.
Conference e-Notices and mailing lists.
LinkedIn and other social media (NI, IEEE AESS and conference channels).
Because the proposal deadline is mid-November, the call should go out as early as possible to give teams
enough time to prepare proposals.
Section 12
Eligibility of Content and Open Results
All material produced in the challenge can be published freely. By applying, every team (academic,
start-up or industry) agrees that its code, data, reports, presentations, posters and videos will be
released openly at the end of the challenge under an open licence [legal team to confirm licence, e.g.
MIT, Apache-2.0 or CC BY]. Teams must not include proprietary IP, export-controlled technical data or
commercially confidential material in their submissions.
Section 13
Terms and Conditions
USRP hardware and related software are subject to export-control regulations.
Hardware
may not be transferred to, or used by, any restricted party or in any sanctioned
destination, and may not be re-exported without authorisation. Shipments outside
India
are subject to customs clearance and are assessed case by case.
Teams are responsible for operating within applicable spectrum rules [in India, WPC
regulations]. Over-the-air transmission is allowed only in permitted bands and power
levels or under an experimental licence; otherwise testing must be conducted through
cables and attenuators or inside a shielded enclosure.
Teams must follow their institution’s RF and laboratory safety procedures and use
appropriate attenuation to protect equipment.
Loaned hardware and accessories may not be sold or transferred. Teams that miss
milestones without agreement, or do not present at the final event, must return the
hardware in good condition.
All presentations, posters, videos, code and data are shared publicly under an open
licence, as set out in Section 12.
Because all outputs are published openly, submissions must not contain proprietary or
confidential content. Teams keep authorship credit for their work [legal team to
confirm].
Photos and video may be taken at the final event and used by NI, IEEE and partners in
marketing and social media.
