The Universal Processing Module – Standardised Hardware for State of the Art Radar Data Conversion and Data Processing

The Universal Processing Module (UPM) is a sophisticated high speed digital hardware for spaceborne microwave applications incorporating in one single device most of the functionalities of the digital backend. The critical components of the UPM (ADCs, DACs, FPGA etc.) and their performance are the forefront of what is feasible for space as of today, hence UPM is a cutting-edge performance device. The customizable design of UPM itself, modular concept allowing performance extension by implementation of multiple modules and customization of the algorithms running on the device allow an application of UPM in multiple types of missions: from simple SAR payloads with classical performance up to sophisticated SAR Systems based on digital beamforming with a large number of digital channels. UPM is at a very advance development status and this paper describes the concept of the UPM, its key features and performance parameters.