A Wideband Digital Beamforming System for Large Aperture Array Radio Telescope

A wideband digital beamforming system based on Chinese Tile Processing Module (CTPM) is designed to support the next-generation large array telescope with flexible multi-beamforming capability and a reliable engineering implementation. The CTPM-based digital beamforming system supports multiple beamforming up to 128 channels of analog signal with maximum 500 MHz instantaneous bandwidth. A number of beamforming tests are carried out to verify the system functionality and results demonstrate very good long-time stability while the channelizer and multi-beam capabilities are in align with SKA LFAA design requirements. According to the test result, eight beams are formed simultaneously with the CTPM DBF system. The CTPM firmware is built-in with Verilog and can be customized according to different scenarios. Thus this CTPM-based DBF system can serve as a possible solution for digital array radio telescopes in wider application.