NI and Ettus Research
Makers of the USRP family of software-defined radios and the UHD driver. The default research SDR for cellular and MIMO work, from the bus-powered B200mini to 400 MHz X410 channels.
| Organisation | NI (National Instruments Corp.), part of Emerson since 2023, headquartered in Austin, Texas; Ettus Research is an NI brand |
|---|---|
| Website | www.ettus.com/ |
| Licensing | UHD and MPM under GPLv3 by default, with an alternative licence available from Ettus on request; USRP FPGA code under its own licensing; hardware proprietary |
| Pricing | List prices on ettus.com (United States region, November 2026): USRP B200mini USD 1,503; B210 board USD 2,387; E320 USD 10,210; X310 USD 11,462 without daughterboards; N310 USD 20,826; X410 USD 33,020 |
| Updated | 15 Nov 2026 |
Products and offerings #
| Name | Kind | Positioning |
|---|---|---|
| USRP B210 | sdr | 70 MHz to 6 GHz, up to 56 MHz real-time bandwidth, 12-bit ADC and DAC, 2 TX and 2 RX, USB 3.0 |
| USRP B200mini | sdr | 70 MHz to 6 GHz, 56 MHz instantaneous bandwidth, 12-bit converters, 1 TX and 1 RX, bus-powered USB 3.0 |
| USRP E320 | sdr | Embedded 2x2 radio with AD9361, 70 MHz to 6 GHz, 56 MHz instantaneous bandwidth, 12-bit converters, SFP+ port |
| USRP X310 | sdr | Two daughterboard slots covering DC to 6 GHz, up to 160 MHz per channel, 14-bit ADC, 16-bit DAC, PCIe and dual 10 GigE |
| USRP N310 | sdr | 4 TX and 4 RX, 10 MHz to 6 GHz, 100 MHz per channel, 16-bit ADC, 14-bit DAC, two SFP+ ports |
| USRP X410 | sdr | 4 TX and 4 RX, 1 MHz to 7.2 GHz, 400 MHz per channel, 12-bit ADC, 14-bit DAC, dual QSFP28 |
| UHD | library | USRP Hardware Driver with C++, C and Python APIs; v4.11.0.0 released 9 September 2026 |
Who they are
This hub is for engineers choosing or running a USRP, the radio that both major open-source cellular stacks support through UHD. Ettus Research was founded in 2004 by Matt Ettus, who announced its acquisition by National Instruments in February 2010. Ettus Research remains an NI brand. According to NI, NI was founded in 1976 and was acquired by Emerson in 2023. NI’s test and measurement business stays headquartered in Austin, Texas. USRPs sit between hobby SDRs and lab instruments: more bandwidth and channels than a HackRF One, without the calibration of a signal analyser.
Tooling and APIs
What you install. Every USRP uses UHD, the USRP Hardware Driver. Version 4.11.0.0 was released on 9 September 2026. Its release notes add the USRP B310, a PCIe and Thunderbolt device. UHD gives you C++, C and Python APIs, command-line tools such as uhd_find_devices and uhd_usrp_probe, and example programs.
The radios. According to the Ettus Research datasheet, the USRP B210 covers 70 MHz to 6 GHz with up to 56 MHz of real-time bandwidth, 12-bit converters, and 2 TX and 2 RX channels over USB 3.0. The B200mini is the 1x1 version and runs from USB bus power. The USRP X310 takes two daughterboards that together cover DC to 6 GHz, with up to 160 MHz per channel, a 14-bit ADC and 16-bit DAC, and PCIe or 10 Gigabit Ethernet links. The X410 has 4 TX and 4 RX channels from 1 MHz to 7.2 GHz with 400 MHz per channel, according to Ettus Research. Ettus also sells the E320, a 2x2 embedded radio with a Zynq-7045 SoC and embedded Linux on the device.
Licensing and pricing at the time of writing. The UHD LICENSE file puts UHD and its MPM device manager under GPLv3 by default, with an alternative licence available from Ettus. The FPGA code has separate licensing. Prices are on ettus.com. With the region set to the United States, the B210 board was USD 2,387, the B200mini USD 1,503 and the X410 USD 33,020.
OS support. The UHD README lists Linux (Fedora and Ubuntu), Mac OS X and Windows 11. On macOS the build guide uses MacPorts for dependencies, and its notes are dated. Some product pages, the X310 among them, list only Linux and Windows. Linux is the safest choice for the networked radios and for anything that streams near the hardware’s limit.
GNU Radio and SoapySDR. gr-uhd ships inside GNU Radio and is maintained by Ettus Research. SoapyUHD (GPL-3.0) exposes USRPs to SoapySDR applications. srsRAN and OpenAirInterface both drive USRPs through UHD.
FPGA. UHD 4.0 overhauled RFNoC, the framework for running your own processing blocks in the USRP FPGA. That is FPGA work. See FPGA Guide.
Pain points. According to the UHD manual, an O printed during receive is an overflow: the host did not consume samples fast enough. On networked radios that can mean dropped packets. The FPGA images must match the host UHD version, and the uhd_images_downloader tool fetches the matching set. Update both together.
Migration notes
- Sample formats. The UHD converter docs use 16-bit complex integers (
sc16) over the wire and 32-bit floats (fc32) on the host by default. SoapySDR and GNU Radio use the same complex float format, so moving between them needs no scaling. See IQ samples. - Files. The
rx_samples_to_fileexample writes raw binary with no metadata. Record the sample rate, centre frequency and gain yourself, or convert to SigMF. See recording and reading IQ. - Clocking. The synchronisation guide uses a shared 10 MHz reference for frequency and a PPS signal for sample time. Multi-device MIMO needs both. See MIMO and beamforming.
- UHD 3 to UHD 4. UHD 4.0, announced in September 2020, reworked RFNoC and dropped Python 2. Custom RFNoC blocks from UHD 3 need porting.
- From a Pluto or HackRF. The UHD API replaces libiio or libhackrf calls. If you wrote to SoapySDR, the same code can open a USRP through SoapyUHD.
Watch for
- Legacy devices. The device manual lists USRP1, B100, USRP-E1x0 and USRP2 as legacy: unsupported or no longer sold. Second-hand bargains are often these.
- Export and compliance. The E320 product page restricts the TPM-equipped version in some countries and offers a non-TPM variant for China, Hong Kong, Russia, France and Israel. NI’s legal page states a general export-compliance policy. Ask for the classification before shipping a radio abroad.
- Daughterboards. X310 prices exclude daughterboards, which set its frequency range and bandwidth. Price the full configuration.
- Spectrum. A USRP transmits wherever you tune it. Transmit only where you hold a licence or permit, or into a cable and attenuator. See spectrum, security and regulation.