Mid.CBF AA1 PST Beamforming
Mid.CBF PST Beamforming for AA1 is the simplest form of beamforming. The individual beams are only added together, there is no additional manipulation of the signal.
Mid.CBF is commanded by LMC and provides it’s output products to the PST element.
CBF PST External Interfaces
Focus for Design
Define the complete set of parameters flowing throughout Mid CBF
Drive well defined layers
Drive parameters and interactions down to the lowest possible level in the software
MCS interacts only with VCC and FSP Top Level Devices
MCS manages interactions between talon boards
required for correlation of more than 1 200 MHz frequency slice
required for PST Beamforming?
VCC and FSP top level devices are only aware of interactions between low level device servers
Low level device servers store all parameters, calculations etc that are used only by that device server, do not push this higher in the software
Prefer anything that can be done in the software, be done in the software rather than in the firmware
FW design includes definition of required parameters, calculations etc needed to configure and control the firmware; this forms the interface between the FW and the SW tango device servers
Scenarios
AA1
One subarray, one receptor, one fs, one talon board
One subarray, two receptors, one fs, one talon board
One subarray, one receptor, two fs, two talon boards
One subarray, two receptors, three fs, three talon boards
Add more
Beyond AA1
Two subarray etc.
Design References
311-000000-003 SKA1 CSP Mid Correlator and Beamformer Subelement Detailed Design Document (EB-4a) Rev 3 2018-10-11
ICDs for LMC to CBF, PSS, PST: Mid.CBF Interface Control Documents (ICDs)
Source repository for this documentation: ska-mid-cbf-pst-proto.