RFI-Resistant Decimeter Band Radiometer for the RATAN-600 Radio Telescope

Abstract

The development of methods for the radio frequency interference mitigation becomes a fundamental challenge for any radio astronomy research. In this paper, we report on the development and creation of a new spectrometer designed for solar observations at the RATAN-600 radio telescope, capable of excising radio interference using a statistical algorithm based on the spectral kurtosis estimation. The implementation of the external analog interface and the operation of the digital signal processing system based on the FPGA are described. The maximum spectral resolution reached is 122 kHz in the frequency band of 1.0–3.0 GHz. The output spectrum has from 64 to 8192 frequency bins, depending on the requirements of the observer, the output rate is 120 spectra per second. The test results and the first observations of the Sun show that the research method can successfully detect and suppress interference from most of the local radio interference sources.