Design and Development of Virtex-6 FPGA based DSP hardware for FMCW Radar

Abstract

FMCW based RADAR ALTIMETER is used for measurement of altitude above the ground. DSP module is used to extract two-way propagation delay and doppler shift from the received echo signal and thereby enable precise altitude and platform velocity measurement. The assigned project task requires pre-requisite, in-depth knowledge and experience with ML605 (Virtex-6 FPGA chip based) Evaluation Board, AD4245EVM (14-bit High Speed ADC, Texas Instruments) Evaluation Board, AD9910 (Complete-DDS with Integrated High Speed DAC, Analog Devices) , VHDL, Digital Signal Processing techniques, intermediate desired hardware configuration and interfaces. The architecture of Virtex-6 FPGA and its evaluation board ML605 is required to be understood in-depth for carrying out the project work. Firstly, the above mentioned hardware configuration and interfaces have to be understood, implemented and tested on ML605 FPGA board. The corresponding VHDL codes and desired Signal Processing techniques have to be developed and implemented. Secondly, a MATLAB/Python based Graphical User Interface has to be developed to Power-on , Send specific serial command data information and logging the useful acquired data in the host PC from the system. Thirdly, Test and Performance evaluation of the complete unit has to be done to discover any further room for improvement.