Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published April 4, 2019 | Submitted
Report Open

Digital Signal Processing using Stream High Performance Computing: A 512-input Broadband Correlator for Radio Astronomy

Abstract

A "large-N" correlator that makes use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays and Graphics Processing Units has been deployed as the digital signal processing system for the Long Wavelength Array station at Owens Valley Radio Observatory (LWA-OV), to enable the Large Aperture Experiment to Detect the Dark Ages (LEDA). The system samples a ~100MHz baseband and processes signals from 512 antennas (256 dual polarization) over a ~58MHz instantaneous sub-band, achieving 16.8Tops s^(-1) and 0.236 Tbit s^(-1) throughput in a 9kW envelope and single rack footprint. The output data rate is 260MB s^(-1) for 9 second time averaging of cross-power and 1 second averaging of total-power data. At deployment, the LWA-OV correlator was the largest in production in terms of N and is the third largest in terms of complex multiply accumulations, after the Very Large Array and Atacama Large Millimeter Array. The correlator's comparatively fast development time and low cost establish a practical foundation for the scalability of a modular, heterogeneous, computing architecture.

Additional Information

Research presented here was supported by National Science Foundation grants PHY-083057, AST-1106045, AST-1105949, AST-1106059, AST-1106054, and OIA-1125087. The authors acknowledge contribution from the Long Wavelength Array facility in New Mexico, which is supported by the University Radio Observatories program under grant AST-1139974, and National Science Foundation grant AST-1139963. The authors also thank Xilinx and NVIDIA for hardware and software contributions, Digicom Electronics for expedited manufacture and delivery of production ROACH systems and ADCs early in the first production cycle, server vendor Silicon Mechanics for configuration testing, and Blundell, Tong, Leiker, and Kimberk of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Receiver Lab for expert discussion and construction of critical RF prototypes and field deployable hardware.

Attached Files

Submitted - 1411.3751.pdf

Files

1411.3751.pdf
Files (6.0 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:ac49fffaa99925329f99104cab92e4bb
6.0 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023