CSIRO: Radio Astronomy
Researchers in Australia use Xilinx FPGAs to economically meet the demanding requirements of an advanced telescope.
As the largest and most sensitive telescope ever envisioned, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will revolutionize knowledge of the universe. On the path to the development of the SKA, the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) is at a key SKA science frequency band of 700 MHz to 1.8 GHz. This large field of view makes ASKAP an unprecedented survey telescope poised to achieve substantial advances in SKA key science.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Astronomy and Space Science (CASS) is undertaking construction of the ASKAP. CSIRO is also involved in the development of the SKA, which is anticipated to be operational in 2024. There are two major problems to solve with ASKAP: huge compute capacity and very high-bandwidth data communications. It is easy to find a solution to one, but not to both challenges simultaneously. Xilinx FPGAs provide an excellent balance of I/O bandwidth to computational capacity and is well suited to the repetitive parallel operations in filter banks and beam formers.
Radio astronomy instrumentation also requires an operating environment very low in electromagnetic interference (EMI)—telescopes are sensitive to extremely low levels of radiation. The technological advances in Xilinx FPGAs that reduce operating voltages and I/O swings help reduce EMI further. A second advantage in using Xilinx devices is that the resulting lower-power systems require less cooling, a double saving for an astronomy instrument that operates 24/7.
Additional Information
- Read the full story, in Xcell Journal Issue 75, or reprinted in EE Times: “Xilinx FPGAs beam up next-gen radio astronomy.”