New NEO search technology using small telescopes and FPGA

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is developing a new observation technology for Near Earth Objects (NEOs). The technology employs a very different process compared to existing NEO survey programs such as Pan-Starrs and CSS, and could possibly innovate the current NEO survey concept. It uses many CCD images in which to detect faint and fast moving NEOs. The FPGA (field programmable gate array) board is used to reduce analysis time. We discovered two NEOs using 18-cm telescopes in January 2017. This marked Japan's first discovery of NEOs in about nine years.