Programmable Waveform-Independent Digital Processor for Digital-RF Satellite Communications

Welkin Sciences proposed to build and deliver the Configurable Basestation Processor (CBP), a MIL-STD-188-165A-compatible digital signal processing subsystem tailored for "firmware modem" applications. The CBP design is a special configuration of our existing COMLNK Hardware Platform(CHP), an FPGA-based rapid prototyping system used to develop strategic military transceivers. Both the CBP and the CHP exploit "software modem" concepts formulated over two decades of high-fidelity digital transceiver emulation work funded by the Defense Nuclear Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Missile Defense Agency. The CHP has an FPGA-based direct IF signal converter with ADCs and DACs running at 500 Msps rate. This firmware will be reused and adapted for the CBP to synthesize (and capture) the digital signal streams passing into (and out of) the cryogenic direct RF converter currently being developed under CERDEC sponsorship. The CBP firmware will also implement all pertinent digital transceiver signal and data processing: waveform generation functions (e.g., error correction encoding, modulation); and receiver baseband signal processing functions (e.g., carrier acquisition, frequency tracking , bit synchronization, demodulation) and post-detection receiver functions (e.g., frame synchronization, error correction decoding). The CBP design will also include a specialized digital interface to the direct RF converter subsystem.