ArchiTek FPGA development suite adds custom FPGA IP to Talon recorders
A development environment that adds custom FPGA IP to Pentek Talon RF/IF signal recorders. It is intended for signal intelligence (SigInt), communications intelligence (ComInt) and electronic intelligence (ElInt) applications.
The ArchiTek FPGA development suite adds custom IP to select Pentek Talon recording systems. The environment enables engineers to add FPGA IP, such as threshold detection, spectral filtering, digital down-conversion, signal classification, demodulation and other digital signal processing techniques, to recording systems.
In custom IP development, an FPGA architecture has to protect against common pitfalls, such as breaking the existing IP and corresponding recording software.
ArchiTek harnesses Pentek’s Navigator FPGA development kit (FDK) and board support package (BSP) to provide a development environment that guides engineers through the process of integrating custom IP into the recorder. Combined with the Navigator FDK, ArchiTek provides the foundation and example projects for adding IP to user blocks and creating additional data-path branches from existing data streams, while protecting the recorder’s standard functionality, said Pentek.
“Pentek has structured FPGA designs in a way that allows engineers to easily add digital signal processing IP to our signal acquisition boards,” said Chris Tojeira, Pentek’s recording systems director. “ArchiTek extends this capability to our Talon recorder product line, resulting in a customizable instrument that better targets the user’s application.”
Customers can now add FPGA IP to a recorder for real-time, on-the-fly digital signal processing during the data acquisition process. This not only reduces time to market but also reduces the time spent post-processing recorded data. Recording only critical data also greatly reduces transfer rates, recording capacity requirements and data offload time.
Developers can use ArchiTek to add recording channels to the system, so users can record both processed and unprocessed data simultaneously. Documentation and tutorials assist developers through the customisation process.
ArchiTek can be used for spread-spectrum techniques. Instead of recording the entire frequency span, ArchiTek allows one signal of interest to be extracted using a custom FPGA block so that only the signal of interest is delivered for recording.
It may also be used for SigInt monitoring for signal classification and time stamping of each received transmission. By suitably configuring the classification algorithm within the FPGA using ArchiTek, only the key parameters of each signal need to be recorded. This dramatically extends the useful mission time, says Pentek, adding that real-time processing at the front end also reduces or eliminates post-processing tasks.
The ArchiTek FPGA development suite, Model 4818, is currently available for select models of Talon recorders.
