A high-speed parallel FFT-processor for a radio astronomy telescope

A radio astronomy telescope with a wide field of view is an efficient tool for locating such transient radio sources in space as supernova explosions. A promising method of designing this type of telescope is to apply Fourier transformation to the output signals from a phased array antenna. the implementation of a high-speed parallel FFT processor to an eight-element linear phased array antenna output is reported in this paper. Small size and low-power con sumption are achieved by utilizing conventional digital video signal processing LSIs. In the present pilot system, arithmetic operation up to a speed of 2.7 COPS (giga operations per second) has been attained. the basic operation has been confirmed by solar observation.