RF Engines unveils world’s most flexible ultra-wideband channelizer solution
RFEL anticipates that the ChannelCore Flex will find widespread application in areas including electronic surveillance, satellite communications and future base station architectures, where concurrent monitoring, detection and demodulation of a communication channels are required.
Channelization is a relatively straight forward signal-processing task. For example, a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) can efficiently process a wideband signal into over 1000 channels. However, this can only be done with limitations: The channels all have equal bandwidths, which is inflexible and problematic when processing different types of transmissions concurrently. The bandwidth of individual channels is inversely proportional to the number of channels supported. The centre frequencies of the channels are uniformly spaced and are not independently controllable. There is limited control of the frequency response of the individual channels, leading to compromised stop-band and pass-band performance. It cannot be readily interfaced to existing hardware due to differing sampling rates and data formats.
More advanced signal processing techniques such as Weighted Over-Lap and Add (WOLA) pre-processing and hierarchical channelization using a Pipelined Frequency Transform (PFT) can overcome many of these limitations. RFEL has adopted the enhancements together with other proprietary techniques to create an ultra-wideband Channelizer that offers unrivalled performance and flexibility, enabling it to be tailored to bespoke applications while remaining hardware efficient.
ChannelCore Flex is capable of being configured to support many thousands of channels, spanning an input bandwidth exceeding 1 GHz. Importantly, these channels can have individual bandwidths that can vary by several orders of magnitude, be overlapped to accommodate broadband transmissions, and have centre frequencies and sample rates that can be independently tuneable to sub-Hertz resolution (≤1 Hz). The end result is a Channelizer architecture that can be configured to support concurrent monitoring of multiple channels, with bandwidths ranging from as large as hundreds of Megahertz, to as narrow as a few Hertz, delivering an overall aggregate channelized sample rate that can exceed 1 Gs/s.
RFEL has created an IP core that is compile and run-time programmable from a simple set of parameters derived from the user’s technical specification. RFEL claims the high-performance and optimized IP core precisely offers the required level of flexibility demanded by the application, while minimising hardware cost and delivering a fast time-to-market.
“ChannelCore Flex delivers advanced features that are the culmination of over ten years of design and implementation experience,” explained John Summers, RFEL’s CEO. “The pedigree of RFEL in the area of channelization means that there is a very low technical risk when embarking on a new design, so customers can be confident of being ‘up and running’ very quickly.”
Availability and Pricing
ChannelCore Flex is available for licensing now, for implementation in a wide range of Xilinx or Altera FPGA devices. Prices are dependent on each implementation’s specific set of requirements, but typically fall in the range of $10 000 – $40 000.
Visit RF Engines at www.rfel.com
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