Title:	A digital receiver for the Murchison Widefield array
Authors:	Prabu, T. Srivani, K.S. Kamini, P.A. Madhavi, S. Deshpande, A.A. Udaya Shankar, N. Subrahmanyan, Ravi Gopalakrishna, M.R. Kumar, Deepak +45 Co-authors
Issue Date:	Mar-2015
Publisher:	Springer
Citation:	Experimental Astronomy, 2015, Vol. 39, p73-93
Abstract:	An FPGA-based digital-receiver has been developed for a low-frequency imaging radio interferometer, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). The MWA, located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia, consists of 128 dual-polarized aperture-array elements (tiles) operating between 80 and 300 MHz, with a total processed bandwidth of 30.72 MHz for each polarization. Radio-frequency signals from the tiles are amplified and band limited using analog signal conditioning units; sampled and channelized by digital-receivers. The signals from eight tiles are processed by a single digital-receiver, thus requiring 16 digital-receivers for the MWA. The main function of the digital-receivers is to digitize the broad-band signals from each tile, channelize them to form the sky-band, and transport it through optical fibers to a centrally located correlator for further processing. The digital-receiver firmware also implements functions to measure the signal power, perform power equalization across the band, detect interference-like events, and invoke diagnostic modes. The digital-receiver is controlled by high-level programs running on a single-board-computer. This paper presents the digital-receiver design, implementation, current status, and plans for future enhancements.
Description:	Restricted Access. An open-access version is available at arXiv.org (one of the alternative locations)
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/2289/6214
ISSN:	1572-9508 0922-6435 (Online)
Alternative Location:	http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.05015 http://adsabs.harvard.edu/doi/10.1007/s10686-015-9444-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10686-015-9444-3
Copyright:	2015 Springer
Appears in Collections:	Research Papers (A&A)

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