RF and Microwave Test and Design Roadshow Cape Town & Midrand

RF and Microwave Test and Design Roadshow Cape Town & Midrand

Advanced PXI Technologies Signal Recording, FPGA s, and Synchronization Philip Ehlers

Outline Introduction to the PXI Architecture PXI Data Streaming (Record and Playback) FPGA Co-Processing Timing and Synchronization (MIMO) PCI Express Multicore Processors FPGAs Data Converters 3

Traditional Instrumentation 4

The Expectations More Functionality Reduced Cost Smaller Footprint Accelerated Delivery Image courtesy of Wade Lowdermilk, BAE Systems 5

Issues with Traditional Instruments Vendor-Defined measurements Poor software integration Large footprint High Power consumption Poor Inter-device Synchronization Fixed Functionality 6

Customer-Defined measurements Extra Small footprint Tight software integration Power Efficient Flexible Tight Synchronization Software Defined Hardware Upgradable Customizable

PXI Chassis High-Bandwidth & Performance High-Availability Low-Noise & Footprint, Portable System bandwidth up to 12 GB/s 8-slot and18-slot versions in 5U of 19 rack-space Hot-swappable, redundant (available) DC power supplies Hot-swappable, frontaccessible, redundant cooling fans Ideal for desktop use Integrated MXI control option available 4-slot and 5-slot versions 8

The PXI Express Backplane System Controller Slot System Timing Slot Peripheral Slots (Hybrid Compatible) 9

PXI System Controllers Embedded Controllers Rack-Mount Controllers Remote Controllers Complete system within a single chassis Ability to run both standard and RT OSs Integrated peripherals High-performance multicore processors RAID 0 HD configurations for highspeed streaming to disk 1U form factor Use the latest, high-performance PCs Extend existing PCI or PCI Express bus Take advantage of laptop control for portable solutions 10

Modular Capability for Every Application DAQ and Control Multifunction I/O FPGA Digital I/O Analog Input / Output Vision and Motion Counter / Timer / Clock Sensor Measurements Reconfigurable I/O Signal Conditioning Instruments Oscilloscopes High-Speed Digital I/O Digital Multimeters Signal Generators Switching RF Analyzers & Generators Power Supplies Dynamic Signal Analyzers Source Measurement Units Interfaces GPIB, USB, LAN RS232 / RS485 CAN, LIN, FlexRay Avionics Buses I2C/SPI Boundary Scan / JTAG DeviceNet, PROFIBUS SCSI, Ethernet VXI - VME NI Offers 600+ PXI Products And there are over 1500 PXI modules from 70+ vendors in the market today 11

High-Bandwidth & Performance RF Record & Playback and FPGA Co-processing

PXIe-1085 2-PXI Data Transfer x8 PCIe Gen2 Link (4GB/s/direction) PXI Express Controller Slot 1 x8 x4 x16 x4 x16 PCIe Gen2 Link (8GB/s/direction) System BW 12GB/s x8 Gen2 Link (4 GB/s) PCIe Switch x8 PCIe Switch x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 x8 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 PCIe to PCI PCIe to PCI Slot Color Legend PXIe Hybrid Slot PXIe System Timing Slot 13

PXI Express - Very High Data Throughput x8 14

High-Speed data streaming enables two unique applications. RF Record and Playback FPGA Co-processing 15

RF Record and Playback Unique to PXI because of high-throughput datastreaming Applications include spectrum monitoring, and wireless receiver test Utilize high-throughput RAID storage volumes 16

Streaming Options Streaming to/from Controller Memory Streaming to/from Disk Peer-to-Peer Streaming

RF Recording Architecture Antenna Amplifier Bandpass Filter LNA Vector Signal Analyzer Disk Array OR Transmitter 18

How Much Data Can One Store? PXIe-5665 with HDD-8266 50 MHz of BW (62.5 MS/s = 250 MB/s) HDD-8266 has up to 24 TB of storage 24 TB / 250 MB/s = 1 days What do you do with the data? Analyze the signal content o Demodulate the signal (often blindly) o Observe spectral content Play it back with an RF vector signal generator 19

RF Playback From Disk Playback up to 24 TB of data with NI HDD-8266 24-Drive RAID-0 array NI PXIe-5673E Playback From Disk 85 MHz to 6.6 GHz frequency range 100 MHz BW (125 MS/s, 500 MB/s) Playback full BW for just over half a days 20

Case Study: GNSS Record and Playback Using PXI RF record and playback tools from National Instruments, we were able to improve our GNSS receiver testing methods and save significant costs of more extensive field testing. Stephen Bateman, Vice President of Engineering The Challenge Conducting field tests and simulations to produce a truly repeatable Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal with real-world signal impairments. The Solution Adopting National Instruments PXI RF signal generators, analyzers, and waveform storage media to create our own GNSS record and playback system based on PXI and NI LabVIEW software. 22

FPGA Co-Processing RF Record and Playback FPGA Co-processing 23

FPGA Co-Processing Unique to PXI because of peer-to-peer streaming Real-time signal processing, SDR, and RT spectrum monitoring Utilizes LabVIEW FPGA for greater user productivity 24

Why Use an FPGA?...Performance! 5,000 5,000 500 2.376 TMACS 500 FPGA Performance (GMACs) FPGAs 50 CPUs 50 CPU Performance (GFLOPs) 5 1997 1999 2001 2002 2004 2008 2011 2012 2013 5 25

LabVIEW FPGA: How Does it Work? LabVIEW VI LabVIEW FPGA Xilinx Compiler VHDL Bitfile FPGA Target User Generated Auto Generated 26

NI FlexRIO System Architecture PXI/PXIe NI FlexRIO Adapter Module Interchangeable I/O Customizable by users NI FlexRIO Adapter Module Development Kit (MDK) NI FlexRIO FPGA Module Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA 136 digital I/O lines Up to 2 GB onboard DDR3 DRAM High-speed data streaming to host at 3.2 GB/s 27 PXI Platform Synchronization Clocking/triggers Power/cooling Data streaming

P2P Software FPGA #1 (Writer) Host VI FPGA #2 (Reader) 28

Example Application: Frequency Domain Trigger NI-RFSA Data PXI Trigger P2P Stream 29

In-line Signal Processing Generic View In-line Processing Rx Rx Scan Lists Triggering Energy Detection Filtering Rx Signal Processing Signal Classification DDC Channelization Decimation Pulse Decoding Demodulation Channel Decoding Source Decoding Data Storage System Signals (Triggers, GPIO, etc) System Signals (GPS timing, Triggers, GPIO, etc) Data Storage Channel Emulation Spoofing Jamming Tx Signal Processing Source Coding Channel Coding Modulation Resampling DUC Tx Tx VSAs & VSGs FlexRIO FAMs LabVIEW LabVIEW LabVIEW LabVIEW VSAs & VSGs FlexRIO FAMs Desktop Real-Time FPGA MPU/MCU Baseband High Speed DIO Baseband High Speed DIO 30

Advanced Synchronization Phase-Coherent RF Measurements

Synchronizing Traditional VSAs RF ADC LO_1 LO_2 LO_3 Clk10 RF ADC LO_1 LO_2 LO_3 Clk10 NI PXI-5661 33

Traditional Synchronization Method 10 MHz Reference Phase Detector Filter VCO RF 1 I1 φ LO 1 ADC DDC Q 1 N Frequency Divider Phase Detector Filter VCO RF 2 I 2 φ N LO 2 ADC DDC Q 2 Frequency Divider 34

Better Synchronization through Modularity RF 1 LO 1 ADC DDC I 1 10 MHz Reference Phase Detector Filter VCO Q 1 φ RF 2 N Frequency Divider LO 2 ADC DDC I 2 Q 2 Use of a common local oscillator for synchronization improves measurement quality 35

Channel-to-Channel Phase Accuracy STDEV = 0.37 STDEV = 0.045 36

Shared Reference vs. Shared LO 37

8-Channel Phase-Coherent Acquisition PXI VSA s achieve phase-coherence through shared LO System expandable to 16x16 and beyond 38

8-Channel Synchronized Generation PXI VSA s achieve phase-coherence through shared LO System expandable to 16x16 and beyond 39

Summary PXI incorporates a wide range of technologies High-speed PCI express data bus Muliti-core CPU s and FPGA s Built-in timing and synchronization PXI enables a wide range of applications Record and playback Peer-to-peer streaming Phase-coherent measurements 40