rfengines limited    Tel : +44 (0)1983 550330
Fax : +44 (0)1983 550340
 
 RFEL : Systems - PCI Upconverter
 
   

The PCI Upconverter is a highly configurable RF signal generator. The Upconverter uses the direct digital conversion output from a high-speed Digital to Analogue Converter (DAC) and has no RF analogue electronics in the RF output chain.

Extremely complex and dynamically changing output waveforms can be created using up to 32 data sources with potentially unrelated and diverse characteristics. Unique features allow characteristics of the output waveforms to be manipulated in real-time.


PCI Upconverter block diagram

The Upconverter can be thought of as a sophisticated arbitrary waveform generator, capable of having up to 32 I&Q data sets streamed to it. The data sets are created by external means, using an application such as MATLAB and stored to disk. Each data set can be generated with an arbitrary sample rate. The onboard DSP firmware re-samples the input data streams to the IF sample rate of the system (either 70MHz or 140MHz), applies a resampling filter and then upconverts the resampled signal to any frequency in the IF +/-(fs/2) range (limited by half-band filters in the upsampling DAC).

The PCI Upconverter is supplied as a complete integrated system including a high specification PC.




 Features

• Support for up to 32 signal channels with arbitrary waveforms and input sample rates.
• Any channel can contain any type of waveform, including CW, QPSK and QAM
• High quality fractional resampler in each channel means any channel can have signals of any sample rate applied (up to the system data transfer rate).
• Resampler filter characteristics optimised for communication systems.
• Each channel includes an independently controllable high resolution NCO Mixer – allows CW generation without the need for input data files, or the need to increase the input data transfer rate..
• Real time configurable Gaussian noise generator built-in.
• RF output scaling configurable in real time.
• Two RF centre frequency modes. Selectable between 70MHz or 140MHz.
• RF bandwidths of 70MHz (in 70MHz centre frequency mode) or 140MHz (in 140MHz centre frequency mode).
• Uses 560MSPS 16bit over-sampling DAC for high resolution output and to simplify reconstruction filter design.
• Aggregate channels’ sample rate limited only by maximum data transfer rate of the system (25Msamples/sec in disk mode, 130Msamples/sec in RAM mode).
• Communications optimised resampler filters limit the input signal bandwidth to 40% of the input sampling rate for each channel.
• File based system for streaming very long and complex input signal data sets to the Upconverter hardware directly from disk.
• Automatic optimisation to speed up data transfer rates to over 512Mbytes/sec depending on the applied data set characteristics.
• Comprehensive Windows DLL and MATLAB toolset supplied allowing the user to easily configure the upconverter using their application of choice.
• MATLAB Graphical User Interface (GUI) supplied to simplify operation and make the system ‘look and feel’ like a piece of test equipment.
• Input data files can be created using different numerical formats.
• Supplied as a complete system, PC host, PCI cards and software included (MATLAB not included).
• Works with MATLAB version 2007a and later. MATLAB Version 2009a and later recommended.

 
Information

- PCI Upconverter Data Sheet

- Need help ?