Control and acquisition system for SWIR focal plane arrays from SOFRADIR

We report on the design, testing and characterization of a control and acquisition system developed for SWIR detectors from SOFRADIR. These detectors are MCT arrays developed for SWIR (Short Wavelength Infra Red) and hyperspectral applications;. The ROIC (Readout integrated circuitry) of each FPA (Focal Plane Array) delivers multiple analog outputs buffered and converted in the digital domain by dedicated board designed by SOFRADIR. These boards perform a time multiplexing of the digitized signals, leading to high data throughputs. Each FPA has its own dedicated Stirling micro-cooler. The control and acquisition system developed by our team is able to handle the high data throughput (up to 1.6 Gbit/s) thanks to a high speed acquisition board from National Instruments embedded in a PXI system. A standard DAQ card is used to acquire the house-keepings, control the different power supplies and clock generators while an SPI adapter enables the configuration of the FPA. The overall system is managed under the Labview environment with a flexible and comprehensive interface to the user with extensive logging of all operational parameters. The purpose of this paper is to describe the architecture of the overall system and to detail its performances.