RusTL-SDR

A pure Rust implementation of the RTL-SDR driver, for shits and giggles.

This is mostly an exercise in writing low-level driver code.

Unusable, and highly unlikely to ever become usable. But it's fun.

For real alternatives check out the original librtlsdr implementation or the high-level rtlsdr_mt Rust bindings.

Usage

Install the crate in your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
rustl-sdr = "0.2"

Use in your code:

extern crate rustl_sdr;

fn foo() {
    rtlsdr = rustl_sdr::RtlSdr::new(&ctx);
    rtlsdr.init();
    rtlsdr.do_stuff();
}

Or run one of the example binaries:

$ RUST_LOG=info cargo run --bin rustl_fm

Dev

The usual:

$ cargo build
$ cargo test -- --nocapture

Since there isn't (?) any good USB device mocking setup, for tests to pass an RTL-SDR device must be connected.

Design

Overview

RusTL-SDR is very similar to the original rtl-sdr driver. It uses libusb, via the rusb bindings, as the main interface to issue commands to the rtl-sdr USB dongle.

Lifecycle

Devices generally go through the following lifecycle:

1. Get a libusb context/handle, and find a compatible and supported RTL-SDR device
2. Initialize the device baseband
3. Probe the device for known tuners via the I2C interface
4. Run any special initialization required for the detected tuner
5. Interact with the device, usually this is where samples are read
6. Deinitialize the tuner
7. Deinitialize the baseband
8. Close the USB handle

License

GPLv3