A novel digital platform for deep space transponders: the receiver side

The progress of digital design techniques and the improvement of the very large scale integration (VLSI) technologies allow the implementation of the signal processing core of telemetry, tracking and command (TTC) equipments in customized digital devices which support the complete set of communication functions as required by the most advanced space applications and recently issued standards. Accordingly a new digital platform, the TTC Modem, has been developed by Alenia Spazio in the frame of the ESTEC Contract 15902/01/NL/JA. The TTC Modem is partitioned in two main sections: the receiver side (NDP-Rx, Receiver Novel Digital Platform) and the transmitter side side (NDP-Tx, Transmitter Novel Digital Platform), which are respectively based on the Rx-FPGA and the Tx-FPGA. In particular, this paper focuses on the NDP-Rx, while the companion paper (Simone et al., 2004) offers an overview on the NDP-Tx.