Modular Multi-Channel RFSoC System Expansion and Array Design

Abstract

Radio Frequency (RF) sensors are often designed to operate in a single mode or configuration. Demands coming from operating in future challenging Electromagnetic Environment (EM) conditions require innovative solutions and significant changes from current radar architectures. This paper provides a system level review of a modular multi-function RF sensor solution which allows for a N node solution which can be either used to drive a singular powerful array solution OR deployed as N multistatic RF sensor nodes. Both solutions use a common digital solution which is based on the Xilinx Radio Frequency System on a Chip (RFSoC) technology. An antenna array operating at C-band has been designed for the project, along with daughter-boards which facilitate access to all 8 receive channels from the Xilinx ZCU111 RFSoC development board. A solution to the challenges of synchronising the ADC channels (including across multiple ZCU111 boards) is also presented, with results showing the synchronisation performance.