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A high speed networked signal processing platform for multi-element radio telescopes

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Abstract

A new architecture is presented for a Networked Signal Processing System (NSPS) suitable for handling the real-time signal processing of multi-element radio telescopes. In this system, a multi-element radio telescope is viewed as an application of a multi-sensor, data fusion problem which can be decomposed into a general set of computing and network components for which a practical and scalable architecture is enabled by current technology. The need for such a system arose in the context of an ongoing program for reconfiguring the Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT) as a programmable 264-element array, which will enable several new observing capabilities for large scale surveys on this mature telescope. For this application, it is necessary to manage, route and combine large volumes of data whose real-time collation requires large I/O bandwidths to be sustained. Since these are general requirements of many multi-sensor fusion applications, we first describe the basic architecture of the NSPS in terms of a Fusion Tree before elaborating on its application for the ORT. The paper addresses issues relating to high speed distributed data acquisition, Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based peer-to-peer networks supporting significant on-the fly processing while routing, and providing a last mile interface to a typical commodity network like Gigabit Ethernet. The system is fundamentally a pair of two co-operative networks, among which one is part of a commodity high performance computer cluster and the other is based on Commercial-Off The-Shelf (COTS) technology with support from software/firmware components in the public domain.

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Acknowledgements

The 44-element demonstrator for the ORT is being built as a collaborative effort between Radio Astronomy Laboratory at Raman Research Institute and the observatory staff at the Ooty Radio Telescope. Many of the ideas presented here evolved during the trials of demonstrator subsystems for which we specially thank colleagues both at RRI and ORT. CRS would like to thank Madan Rao and Dwarakanath whose comments have helped improving the manuscript. We thank the anonymous referee whose comments have been very helpful in improving the clarity of presentation in the manuscript.

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  1. Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, 560 080, India

    Peeyush Prasad & C. R. Subrahmanya

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  1. Peeyush Prasad
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  2. C. R. Subrahmanya
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Correspondence to Peeyush Prasad.

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Prasad, P., Subrahmanya, C.R. A high speed networked signal processing platform for multi-element radio telescopes. Exp Astron 31, 1–22 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-011-9216-7

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