The use of FPGA evaluation board as data acquisition and pre-processing system for Synthetic Aperture Radar

Experiments on Synthetic Aperture Radar require a data acquisition and storage system. Custom-made systems are well suited to this specific application, but the development of such a system is both time and resource consuming. The use of an off-the-shelf FPGA evaluation board with interchangeable analogue to digital converter cards as a data acquisition and pre-processing system was proposed. Such an approach allows not only for operation with different analogue front-ends, but also for the implementation of data pre-processing, such as modulation and decimation. The modulation makes further processing easier and the filtration-decimation reduces the size of the data stream. A complete system was tested thoroughly during a ground-based experiment and is now ready for airborne testing. As there are unused resources in the FPGA, they will be utilized in the future for the implementation of real-time processing.