A 750MHz and a 8GHz High Bandwidth Digital FFT Spectrometer

The scope of this project is to to develop a wide bandwidth, low power, and compact single board digital Fast Fourier Transform spectrometer (FFTS) optimized for the signal processing requirements of next generation instruments and receivers on-board both earth observing and planetary exploration missions. We achieve our design objectives of wide bandwidth and real-time streaming performance in a compact and low power form factor by utilizing cutting edge ADC & FPGA hardware solutions in combination with high performance FFT IP cores.

The commercial markets for our proposed digital spectrometer are multi-fold: this includes ground-based receivers for radio astronomy applications, atmospheric research performed on-board aircrafts and balloons, imaging arrays for detection of weapons and explosives at airports and on teh battle field, NMR and PET scan medical imaging equipment, and telecommmunication back-end elecronics.

The proposed digital FFT spectrometer system is intended for use in the next generation instruments such as the Scanning Microwave Limb Sounder (SMLS)instrument on-board NASA's Global Atmospheric Composition Mission (GACM)for Earth atmospheric science. The competitive advantage of our proposed space-qualifiable digital spectrometer design over state-of-the-art spectrometers is a quantum leap in bandwith to 8GHz enabling the GACM mission to generate for the first time ever high resolution 3-D maps of atmospheric composition essential tools to enable governments at the local, federal, and global levels to enact policy and changes to avert potentially catastrophic environmental consequences

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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