MILITARY, AEROSPACE & DEFENCE FEATURE Solving aerospace design challenges With sensing satellites playing a key role in remote sensing, navigation and
surveillance, Anil Kumar Pandey, Keysight Technologies, looks into the development of satellite system’s using the latest EDA technology
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eing at the forefront of development, the aerospace and defence industry uses cutting edge technology. An ideal electronic design for the aerospace industry should be reliable, flexible and able to withstand extreme conditions such as stringent shock, vibration and wide operating temperature ranges. It must also be future-proof. Many factors must therefore be taken into consideration when developing a system for this sector, including the characteristics of the device with different technologies, environmental effect, fast design life cycle and overall cost of the system. As electronics become more complicated and pervasive, EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tools are vital to the continued success of designs. EDA provides the critical technology to design electronics that enable a fast and reliable design solution and, based on aerospace design challenges, EDA has completely transformed the way that electrical engineers design, simulate and manufacture circuits. EDA tools are necessary to reduce cost, save time and make design cycles fast because EDA automates various design tasks and provides feedback that enables designers to correct issues before entering the costly manufacturing phase. Satellites play a key role in remote
sensing, navigation and surveillance. The Figure 1: Design challenges
purpose of a remote sensing satellite is to collect remote sensing data and transmit this to the earth station. Remote sensing images are digital, and in order to get information from these, image processing techniques are used to enhance the image to get a visual interpretation. After processing, this data is stored in servers. The data transfer backplanes have high speed interconnect interfaces such as SATA to USB interconnect. Signal integrity analysis (i.e. signal quality) ensures error-free data transfer.
Figure 2: Complete T/R SoC module based on multi-technology PDKs
A. T/R Module: Transceivers systems are used to send a command to the satellite to transfer data to earth stations
B. Phased Array Antenna: SAR system typically uses phased array radar with a cosec-square shaped beam to get the required elevation coverage
C. Multi-mode Tracking Coupler: Multimode coupler uses higher order modes to control earth station antenna direction as per satellite movement
D. High-Speed Interconnects - SATA to USB data transfer module is used to store data on the server. This module is characterized to minimize crosstalk, reflection and power distribution network noise that can cause signal integrity problems
ADVANCES As semiconductor technology advances towards 14nm technology and beyond, circuit design has become unprecedentedly complicated. New aerospace electronic products are extremely complex and the need for IC customisation with low cost and increased complexity can be met by next-generation EDA tools. Today – and next generation – chipsets are likely to have several different types of components based on different technologies embedded into a single chip. Integrating many components onto a single chip enables numerous functions. This increased integration requires innovations in EDA tools for designing chipsets, which enables better functionality. A transceiver system is used in phased array antenna beamforming systems. Themulti-technology feature is a new technique for mixed microwave and RF systems designs where multiple chips based on different fabrication technologies such as RFIC, MMIC, LTCC, and Microstrip are combined on the same RF board. A system level block diagram of a T/R module is given in Figure 2. T/R module ICs have been designed using three different technologies: • MMIC Technology: Two ICs are designed using MMIC technology, a Single-Pole- Double-Through (SPDT) Switch and a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) using on MMIC process design kit (PDK)
INSTRUMENTATION | JULY/AUGUST 2016
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