Setup RTL-SDR in MATLAB As FM Receiver

RTL-SDR are quite famous these days for FM receivers and other FM related tasks for Hobbyists and students. This is a simple tutorial to get started with SDR on MATLAB.

For Further help go through the "Communications System Toolbox Support Package for RTL-SDR Radio Examples" in MATLAB documentation.

Step 1: Requirements

Following components are required to get started:

1) MATLAB (I worked on 2017a)

2) RTL-SDR

Further dependencies required are:

> Communications System Toolbox

> Communications System Toolbox Support Package for RTL-SDR Radio

These are to be installed using the ADD-ONS manager in Matlab.

Step 2: Installing the ADD-ONS

Currently the support packages cannot be downloaded using MATLAB 2017a and earlier.

Hence following link is provided as a big fix.

https://www.mathworks.com/support/bugreports/17411...

Go through the contents of the link. Download the zip file attached with this step. Extract the contents.

File contains bin and bugreport folders.

Copy the bug report to root directory. In my case, it is C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2017a

Copy the contents of bin to C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2017a\bin

> Restart matlab with admin rights and go to ADD-ONS manager

> Type RTLSDR in search and install Communications System Toolbox Support Package for RTL-SDR Radio

> Go through the complete setup and follow all the instructions in the setup.

Step 3: Installing Drivers for RTL

> Plug in the device to the computer.

> Open the Device Manager

> You will find some unrecognized devices.

> Right click on the devices and update driver using internet.

> You have to manually install if does not work through internet directly.

Step 4: Final Step

Now you are all setup.

> Type FMReceiverExample in matlab command window

> Enter the parameters demanded

> You can listen to your favorite radio channel now.

Hope that helps.

BR

Tahir Ul Haq