A scalable computing platform for digital pulse compression and digital beamforming

The paper presents an architectural overview of a scalable digital platform for current and prospective radar systems. The platform was developed specifically to cope with multichannel digital pulse compression and digital beamforming. It consists of two main subsystems. The above rotary joint subsystem performs multichannel sampling, IQ downconversion, signal conditioning and pulse compression. The below rotary joint subsystem accepts multiple datastreams from the above rotary joint subsystem, or a number of such subsystems, and performs digital beamforming, among others. The results are transferred, using fast serial links, to multiple multicore computers for further processing.