Hello Karl, How many antenna elements do you have? We've had simple two-antenna interferometers with both F and X on a single ROACH-1. I'm still using one. There's a tutorial on the wiki doing exactly this.
That being said, ROACH-1's biggest hassle is using CX4 Ethernet plugs, which are finicky and it's hard to get the corresponding computer hardware for capturing the output. ROACH2 has more up-to-date stuff. So it kind of depends as you said on the specific requirements that you have. The CASPER platforms are quite flexible though, so you'd be surprised just how much they can accomplish. Regards, James On 15 Mar 2018 23:59, "Karl Warnick" <[email protected]> wrote: Hi all, I have a non-astronomical comms antenna array project that does not have detailed specs for bandwidth and number of antenna elements. I need to build a programmable platform that I can use for multichannel sampling and real time DSP. Our group has considerable experience with ROACH based systems over the years and hybrid FPGA - GPU architectures, but the students with much of the expertise have graduated and moved on, as students tend to do. We have an x64 board and ROACH that on paper could do the job, but the hardware seems old enough now that I wonder if it might be wise to move to a new platform for my new project. We also like the easier programmability of GPUs for matrix based array signal processing algorithms. We also have a system with digitizers, polyphase filterbanks running on ROACH boards, ethernet switch, and HPCs with GPUs, but that system is in operation at GBO and is probably overkill for the current project. This leads to my question. To realize a system with 16 analog channels and analog bandwidth ranging between a few MHz up to 100 MHz (I realize that this is a rather ill defined range, but I feel fortunate to have the flexibility), that can do digitization, filterbank to separate into frequency channels, and enough processor power for real time XB (correlator/beamformer) type signal processing, with current CASPER hardware, what would be the ideal, recommended hardware setup? The relatively modest bandwidth requirement may also point to a commercial FPGA/ARM core board with an ADC expansion board, and I'm pursuing that path as well. From another project, I have an expansion board of our own design with eight ADC channels that plugs into a microZED board, which actually comes somewhat close to meeting the current requirements. Expanding the ADC board and moving to a bigger commercial digital board is an option. Thanks to all for any feedback! Best, Karl -- Karl F. Warnick Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Brigham Young University 459 Clyde Building Provo, UT 84602 (801) 422-1732 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups " [email protected]" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "[email protected]" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
