Broadband software-defined radio satellite modem design

Client

A European company specializing in software for the ground segment of satellite communications. It works with equipment manufacturers and providers of broadband & multimedia services. 

 

Challenge

To design a hardware & software platform for a satellite modem. The customer decided to integrate a new hardware solution to extend its product line with the original branded solution. 

 

Solution

We designed the device in a compact 1U form factor by dividing it into digital and analog boards. This approach helped us reach the highest flexibility: if you want to scale the device functionality, you only need to repurpose the analog frontend board. 

We chose Zynq Ultrascale+ by Xilinx (AMD) as a development platform. We used the Linux OS and the programmable logic for the functionality implementation.

Our engineers have developed a dedicated front end using high-speed ADC/DAC converters and modern high-frequency analog modulators/demodulators.

Block diagram:

 

We reached high-speed data exchange with a server and device with the help of four 10G interfaces and the DPDK framework. Data transmission is carried out via a specially developed MCP protocol, which ensures reliable data transmission over UDP.
 


For the development of the modem and control software, we used MATLAB/Simulink.

We implemented the system model using model-based design, which means the communication system full implementation in Simulink with the subsequent HDL code generation. That resulted in the following advantages:

  • Rapid design and verification.
  • Processing several ADC samples per clock cycle (parallelization, unrolling, pre-calc).
  • Smooth conversion to a fixed point.
  • Channel model.
  • BER evaluation at the design stage.

 

Our engineers also tested new approaches to AGC implementation and analog frontend calibration. We implemented the AGC subsystem as a Simulink model from which the HDL code was generated.

Tools used:

  • Simulink State Flow
  • HDL coder
  • AXI4-Lite Write Master model

Hardware blocks in the demodulator (LTC5586), DAC (DAC37J82) and ADC (ADS54J60) compensate the following effects:

  • IQ imbalance in the receiving path;
  • IQ imbalance in the transmission path;
  • carrier leakage;
  • group delay.

The Surrogate optimization method was used for figuring out optimal parameters in the specified operation mode. Chip registers served as parameter space. The target functions were: suppression of the mirror channel TX & RX and that one of the carrier channels.

To configure the device and measure the signal parameters, we developed a graphic application.

 

Business value

The customer received a satellite modem with the following features:

  • frequency range: 300 MHz – 2 GHz;
  • bandwidth: up to 500 MHz;
  • ZERO-IF scheme;
  • two receiving paths (ADC 1Gsps) and one transmitting path (1xDAC 1.5Gsps);
  • 4 Ñ… 10G Ethernet for data transmission;
  • Zynq Ultrascale+ platform.

Supported operating modes: 

  • PSK, QAM-manipulations.
  • LDPC and convolutional error correction codes.

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