The Linux kernel Industrial IO (IIO) framework is responsible for handling sensors or converters of all kinds and variations. The framework acts as a hardware abstraction layer where kernel device drivers handle the low-level details of communicating with the hardware. A standard API is exposed from kernel- to userspace and generic requests made by userspace applications are translated into hardware specific requests by the framework and drivers. Having a standard API makes it possible for applications to discover the features of the connected hardware at runtime and to be written in a device independent way, which can greatly improves code re-usability.

This presentation will discuss the IIO framework in the context of Software-Defined-Radio and how it can be used as a generic and efficient transport of data to and from the hardware. It will start with a basic introduction to the IIO framework itself and than go on to discuss the SDR related bits in more detail. The presentation will cover the low-level bits and ideas of the API, the existing userspace applications and libraries up to the GNU Radio integration.

The presentation will conclude with a live demonstration that shows how the IIO framework can be used to efficiently stream data from a embedded FPGA SDR receiver board to GNU Radio running on a laptop for further processing.

The intention of the presentation is to make more people in the SDR community familiar with and knowledge about the IIO API in the hopes of further establishing IIO as a standard tool that can be used to separate hardware access from data processing. This should aid in being able to create generic hardware independent software.