changeset 168:486e19acc66f

doc/Calypso-TCH-downlink: document new utilities
author Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>
date Sun, 25 Dec 2022 09:48:02 +0000 (2022-12-25)
parents 80c93ef82a51
children 0c965c3c5e6e
files doc/Calypso-TCH-downlink
diffstat 1 files changed, 97 insertions(+), 30 deletions(-) [+]
line wrap: on
line diff
--- a/doc/Calypso-TCH-downlink	Fri Dec 16 08:38:36 2022 +0000
+++ b/doc/Calypso-TCH-downlink	Sun Dec 25 09:48:02 2022 +0000
@@ -1,11 +1,10 @@
-It has been discovered that the DSP ROM in the Calypso GSM baseband processor
-implements one nifty feature which is not used at all in standard phone or modem
-operation, but which can be used for all kinds of interesting hacks: the traffic
-channel (TCH) bits coming out of the GSM 05.03 channel decoder in the downlink
-direction (to be fed to one of several speech decoders) can be read out of the
-DSP's API RAM in real time, and in the uplink direction the user can feed her
-own bits to the input of the GSM 05.03 channel encoder, effectively suppressing
-the output of the internal vocoder.
+It has been discovered that the implementation of standard signal processing
+chains for speech TCH downlink and uplink in the DSP ROM in the Calypso GSM
+baseband processor allows these signal processing chains to be tapped at certain
+points, as detailed in the TCH-tap-modes article in our freecalypso-docs Hg
+repository.  There is a mechanism to capture the stream of received traffic
+frames on TCH DL, and there is another mechanism by which an externally supplied
+stream can be "played" into TCH UL.
 
 I (Mother Mychaela) previously played with this functionality back in 2016, and
 it's been mostly shelved since then.  This functionality is now getting renewed
@@ -14,31 +13,99 @@
 can take another shot at decoding TCH downlink captures taken from Calypso GSM
 MS.
 
-For reasons of project resource planning, the work to study Calypso DSP downlink
-bits in EFR mode is currently postponed until after we build our long-overdue FC
-Venus board, but in the case of FR1 codec, we have a TCH downlink recording that
-was captured back in 2016, and by analyzing this recording, we can make the
-following observations:
+The overall functionality is described in the TCH-tap-modes article in
+freecalypso-docs; the mechanism for capturing TCH DL bits from Calypso DSP is
+split between FreeCalypso GSM MS firmware (added to FC Tourmaline as of
+2022-12-23) and the fc-shell utility in the FC host tools package - the updated
+version (required for use with current Tourmaline fw) will be released as part
+of fc-host-tools-r18.  There is also a set of utilities included in the present
+GSM codec libraries & utilities package for parsing and decoding these Calypso
+TCH DL captures; the present document describes these utilities.
+
+As explained in the TCH-tap-modes article in freecalypso-docs, the mechanism
+for capturing TCH DL is currently implemented for TCH/FS, TCH/HS and TCH/EFS,
+corresponding to FR1, HR1 and EFR codecs.  However, further parsing and decoding
+support has only been implemented for FR1 and EFR codecs in the present package,
+in the form of the following utilities:
 
-* DSP status word 0 contains various flags; we already knew some of them, but
-  now we got additional knowledge:
+gsmfr-dlcap-parse	This program reads a TCH/FS DL capture file and parses
+			it for human analysis.  All input fields are passed
+			through to the output, but the program also computes
+			the ternary SID flag of GSM 06.31 section 6.1.1 from
+			the payload bits (for comparison against what the DSP
+			wrote in its status word 0) and prints all broken-down
+			parameter fields of each GSM 06.10 FR1 codec frame.
 
-  bit 2 is BFI
-  bits 4:3 give a 2-bit SID flag per GSM 06.31 section 6.1.1
+gsmfr-dlcap-gsmx	This program reads a TCH/FS DL capture file and converts
+			it into an extended-libgsm (gsmx) file containing a mix
+			of FR1 codec frames and Themyscira BFI markers.  The
+			latter BFI markers will be emitted in those frame
+			positions where FACCH was received instead of speech,
+			or where the DSP otherwise indicated BFI=1.  The gsmx
+			output from this utility needs to be fed to gsmfr-decode
+			from the present package, so that our FR1 Rx DTX
+			preprocessor will take care of SIDs and BFIs, completing
+			the required GSM MS processing chain for TCH/FS DL.
 
-  Unfortunately I couldn't find TAF anywhere - but oh well.
+gsmefr-dlcap-parse	This program reads a TCH/EFS DL capture file and parses
+			it for human analysis.  All input fields are passed
+			through to the output, but the program also computes
+			the ternary SID flag of GSM 06.81 section 6.1.1 from
+			the payload bits (for comparison against what the DSP
+			wrote in its status word 0) and prints all broken-down
+			parameter fields of each EFR codec frame.  Finally, each
+			triplicated bit group of GSM 05.03 section 3.1.1.2 is
+			printed as an octal digit, to aid human analysis of how
+			the DSP writes these bits in its a_dd_0 buffer.
 
-* DSP status word 1 appears to be garbage, DSP status word 2 appears to be some
-  kind of error count - no new knowledge here.
+gsmefr-dlcap-gsmx	This program reads a TCH/EFS DL capture file and
+			converts it into a gsmx binary file, containing a mix
+			of EFR codec frames and Themyscira BFI markers.  The
+			latter BFI markers will be emitted in those frame
+			positions where FACCH was received instead of speech,
+			or where the DSP otherwise indicated BFI=1.  The gsmx
+			output from this utility needs to be fed to
+			gsmefr-decode (or gsmefr-decode-r) from the present
+			package.
 
-* By heeding the newly-understood BFI flag in DSP status word 0, we can do a
-  much cleaner decoding of TCH downlink capture than we did back in 2016.
+gsmefr-dlcap-dec	This program reads a TCH/EFS DL capture file and feeds
+			it directly to the EFR reference decoder implemented in
+			libgsmefr, without going through a gsmx intermediary.
+
+Additional notes:
+
+* The new gsmfr-dlcap-gsmx utility described above replaces the old fc-tch2fr
+  utility from FC host tools - the latter should now be considered a bogon.
+  The required GSM MS processing chain for TCH/FS DL includes the step of Rx
+  DTX handler between the output of GSM 05.03 channel decoder and the input of
+  GSM 06.10 speech decoder; the old chain of fc-tch2fr followed by libgsm
+  decoding omitted this critical step and thus produced very unkind-on-ears
+  sounds.
 
-The new gsmfr-cvt-dlcap utility in the present package replaces the old
-fc-tch2fr utility from FC host tools - the latter should now be considered a
-bogon.  The output from gsmfr-cvt-dlcap is in our gsmx format, containing
-Themyscira BFI markers in those frame positions where Calypso DSP indicated BFI
-on TCH downlink, and it needs to be fed to gsmfr-decode from the present
-package; our FR1 Rx DTX preprocessor will take care of SIDs and BFIs, and the
-complete decoding chain should then closely replicate what must be happening
-inside the original DSP.
+* gsmefr-dlcap-dec has been written as a bold attempt to replicate the complete
+  Rx DTX handler and speech decoder (the part of TCH DL processing chain that
+  sits past the a_dd_0 buffer) as they are implemented inside TI's DSP.  Such a
+  feat won't be possible for FR1 codec (other than by a Herculean effort of full
+  static reversing of the DSP ROM) because there is no bit-exact definition of
+  FR1 Rx DTX functions in GSM specs, but for EFR there is a bit-exact reference
+  implementation from ETSI.  *If* TI's DSP matches this bit-exact reference
+  (there are some aspects of Rx DTX handling where this bit-exact reference is
+  considered to be an example rather than normative, see GSM 06.61), then there
+  is a chance we could replicate TI's DSP chain externally - but only if we can
+  figure out exactly how the bits of a_dd_0[0] drive the logic of their Rx DTX
+  handler.  The Mother's plan is to capture the DSP's decoded speech output from
+  MCSI on an FCDEV3B using a small FPGA board with a PCM-to-UART logic function,
+  while simultaneously capturing TCH DL bits in the a_dd_0 buffer, then run
+  gsmefr-dlcap-dec on the captured TCH DL booty and see if we can replicate the
+  DSP's end output - but until then, this gsmefr-dlcap-dec program should be
+  treated as an unfinished experiment in progress.
+
+* In the case of FR1 codec, there is no prescribed bit-exact definition for the
+  Rx DTX handler (GSM 06.11, 06.12 and 06.31 specs define general requirements,
+  but aren't bit-exact in most aspects), and the way in which we (Themyscira
+  Wireless) have implemented our FR1 Rx DTX handler (libgsmfrp in the present
+  package) perfectly matches our gsmx binary file format for good vs bad frames.
+  Therefore, in the case of FR1 codec there is nothing to be gained by skipping
+  gsmx and calling library functions directly, and thus there is no FR1
+  counterpart to gsmefr-dlcap-dec - just use gsmfr-dlcap-gsmx followed by
+  gsmfr-decode or gsmfr-decode-r.