A purpose-built software-defined radio with a 16-bit ADC, onboard Linux, Gigabit Ethernet with PoE, and phase-coherent multi-chip sync. Built for counter-drone. Ready for anything.
Most SDRs cut corners on resolution, connectivity, or compute. We didn't pick one to fix — VartaSDR fixes all three.
Every other board in this price range uses a 12-bit ADC. We used 16-bit. That's +24 dB of headroom — enough to pick up a drone while a jammer is screaming on the same frequency.
USB tops out at 3 meters. That's a leash. GigE runs 100m over a standard cable, plugs into any network switch, and keeps latency under 1 ms. Deploy your sensor where it actually needs to be.
There's a full Linux computer on this board. Plug in power, it boots, runs your software, and streams data — no laptop required. GNU Radio, custom FPGA pipelines, whatever you need.
Plug in a small GPS module and the board knows exactly where it is and what time it is — down to the nanosecond. That's how you locate a drone using multiple sensors spread across a site.
Stack multiple boards and they stay phase-locked within a nanosecond of each other — in hardware, not software. That's what makes direction-finding arrays actually work.
On the bench, plug in USB-C. Mounted on a pole or rooftop, use PoE — power and data come down the same Ethernet cable you're already running. One cable to the board, nothing else.
VartaSDR was designed alongside the platform, not bolted on after. It slots straight into Mini, Pro, and Max tiers — no adapters, no workarounds.
Need to power an external LNA amplifier on your antenna? The board outputs 5V on the RF port — no adapters, no extra cables. Connect the antenna and it powers the LNA automatically.
Built from the ground up. The spec sheet shows it.
| Feature | Other SDR — Mid Range | VartaSDR 1.0 ★ | Other SDR — High End |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADC Resolution | ✗ 12-bit (72 dB) | ✓ 16-bit (96 dB) | ✗ 12-bit (72 dB) |
| Network Interface | ✗ USB 3.0 only (3m) | ✓ Gigabit Ethernet + USB 3.0 | ✗ USB 3.0 only (3m) |
| Power Input | ✗ USB only | ✓ USB-C or PoE (802.3af) | ✗ USB only |
| On-Board Processing | ✗ Cyclone V (no ARM) | ✓ Zynq 7030 + dual ARM A9 | ✗ Spartan-6 (no ARM) |
| Standalone Operation | ✗ Host PC required | ✓ Runs Linux independently | ✗ Host PC required |
| Multi-Chip Sync | ✗ None | ✓ SYSREF MCS <1 ns | ✗ None |
| GPS / PPS Timing | ✗ None | ✓ Onboard ($12 module) | ✗ Requires external GPSDO module |
| Bias-Tee (LNA power) | ✗ Sold separately | ✓ Built-in 5V on 2 RX ports | ✗ Not available |
| Operating Temp | 0 to +70°C | 0 to +70°C | ✗ 0 to +45°C |
Engineered first for counter-drone. Capable across the full spectrum of SDR applications.
VartaSDR was purpose-built for this. Mount one at your perimeter, power it over PoE, and it starts scanning. Add a second or third board on the same network switch — each one locks to within 1 nanosecond of the others via hardware SYSREF clock distribution. That synchronization is what enables TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival) geolocation: when a drone transmits, each sensor captures the signal at a slightly different time, and the math pins where it is. No cooperation from the drone required. Just physics.
Bolt it to a rooftop, connect power and Ethernet, and walk away. VartaSDR runs headlessly — no laptop, no babysitting. It logs what it hears, flags anomalies, and reports back over the network. PoE means one cable does everything. 40 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth means you're not missing activity between sweeps.
GNU Radio and SoapySDR run natively on the board — no host PC in the loop. SSH in, launch your flowgraph, and it runs on the Zynq SoC's ARM cores with 400 DSP slices and 40 MHz of live RF bandwidth. Build custom demodulators, process protocol frames, or just explore the spectrum. The board is the computer.
Coverage mapping, interference hunting, and signal quality analysis across LTE and 5G bands. Network operators use wideband SDRs to find dead zones, identify interference sources, and validate site performance — without expensive purpose-built analyzers that do the same thing for 10× the price.
Receive CubeSat telemetry, decode NOAA and GOES weather satellite imagery, and verify LEO downlink performance. The 16-bit ADC gives you the dynamic range to pull clean captures from weak satellite signals that lower-resolution boards simply clip and drop.
Catch emissions problems before you pay for an accredited test lab. Validate that your wireless product transmits at the correct frequency, power level, and spectral mask — in-house, early in development, when a fix costs hours instead of weeks and another lab booking.
VartaSDR 1.0 — PCB design underway, specifications subject to minor revision before production.
| Frequency Range | 75 MHz – 6 GHz |
| Instantaneous Bandwidth | 40 MHz |
| Channels | 2T2R (full-duplex capable) |
| ADC / DAC Resolution | 16-bit |
| Max Sample Rate | 61.44 MSPS |
| RX Noise Figure | 3–4 dB (internal LNA) · <1.5 dB (ext. LNA) |
| RX IIP3 | >+20 dBm |
| TX Output Power | +6 dBm (direct) |
| Narrowband Mode | Down to 12 kHz channel bandwidth |
| Bias-Tee | 5V DC on 2 RX ports (GPIO-controlled) |
| FPGA / SoC | Xilinx Zynq XC7Z030 (125K logic, 400 DSP48, dual Cortex-A9) |
| RAM | 256 MB DDR3L |
| Storage | 128 Mbit QSPI + microSD slot |
| Ethernet | 10/100/1000BASE-T (DP83867 PHY) |
| USB | USB 3.0 data + UART console + USB-C PD power |
| GPS / PPS | 1PPS header (3.3V LVCMOS) |
| GPIO | 8-pin PMOD (SPI, I2C, UART, digital) |
| Clock Reference | 10 MHz REF IN (SMA) for MCS distribution |
| Board Size | 100 × 80 mm |
| Power Input | USB-C (PD) or PoE 802.3af — single cable for power + data |
| Operating Temperature | 0 to +70°C |