Complex Radar Environment Simulator Boards

Click on each thumbnail to enlarge images

Important Note:

What is shown in the photo galleries is the unavoidable minimum necessary to demonstrate and offer this experience to this new global market, but this presentation is only a panoramic view with no useful details of the projects done for other companies.
Radar environment simulator board with two Xilinx FPGAs      

These units are the final control parts of a Radar Environment Simulator System, capable to generate radar pulses within the entire radar spectral range, with pulse widths from the nano second range up to CW modes. Both, CW and PW modes include intrapulse amplitude and frequency modulations and complex repetition rates. The board includes two Xilinx FPGAs, a large bank of fast SRAM and a special bus interface to a computer.

This multilayer board was assembled using fine instruments for prototype and short series production level. In the image the unit was connected through an extender board.
 
Schematic of Radar environment simulator board with two Xilinx FPGAs   When a design includes large VLSI parts like these two Xilinx FPGAs, one simple way to avoid visual complexity is to draw these macros as columns with the pins arranged by type and functions, and sorted by number precedence plus designation, and then do a vertical mirror of the columns. The chip appears repeated and reflected vertically thus allowing each pin to be visible at both sides of the columns. With this trick it is possible to attain a very simple to understand design, with a clear distribution of all kinds of buses. This facilitates the work of every person in the production chain, from the routing software expert to the final inspection and testing personnel, and to any one who needs to understand the design to upgrade "gateware" for these boards. One difference between software and "gateware" is the need to understand in detail all hardware issues.
 
Radar environment simulator boards right after chemical cleaning     All antistatic precautions were taken during the production process, including chemical cleaning, component handling, and antistatic storage. However component selection was done according to real environmental conditions that are not necessarily "mil" compliant. We have discovered after extensive testing in an environmental simulator chamber that many modern industrial and commercial grade components can operate well beyond their stated temperature limits, even well inside the military environment arena, thus in some special cases it is not necessary to use expensive military grade components to get a system up and running for all weather conditions. This is a sincere declaration based on practical real life experience, but making sure all tests were really passed.
 
  Rack with radar environment simulator boards

In general these projects include standard computers and PCI boards that can be found in the high-level integration market. These special designs are made only for special purpose functions that cannot be found at a reasonable price in the market, as it is the case of many areas of military electronics. These are complex pieces of hardware produced in small quantities. The classes of functions implemented by the “gateware” embedded into the Xilinx FPGAs have infinite possibilities.

In general it is expected that other engineers that are users of the system or that are involved in the progressive development of the new capabilities are the best to discover new algorithms and ingenious ways to do more and better with less resources.
 
   

This is a small mezzanine board for general applications in industry, with two Xilinx Spartan FPGAs in BGA-400 package. We or our clients contract the soldering services of specialized companies here, like Poirot http://www.poirot.cl/  or Accutrace in the US.
 
rbdu8

This is a multilayer board for an instantaneous radar bearing unit that can also be used for general data acquisition with fast high resolution ADCs.

We count with the services of a local contractor in PCB design. The files are produced in standard Gerber software format. The contractor sends the file package to PCB manufacturers in Chile like CIGA http://www.ciga.cl/  or in San Jose CA, as the well known Sierra Proto Express http://www.protoexpress.com/  or Accutrace http://www.accutrace.com/

 
 
 

This assembly of two boards is an Instantaneous Radar Bearing Unit for three dimensional 3-D antenna arrays. The set comprises two boards:

1) A general purpose 8 channel data acquisition board with ultra fast ADC converters for intra pulse sampling. The video signals come from an array of Detector-Logarithmic-Video-Amplifiers (DLVAs) spanning a very large dynamic range in dBm an capable to detect along the entire spectral range used by all types of radars.

2) A Mezzanine board with 2 Xilinx Spartan 3 Field Programmable Gate Arrays for instantaneous pipelined math processes, comprising instantaneous classification upon 3 dimensional angles of arrival (3D AOA), and threat de-interleaving. The de-interleaving process is greatly facilitated by high resolution 3D AOA.
 
 
 

 

This board includes a communications coprocessor, memory banks and fast differential amplifiers for the ADC converters. Lineal voltage regulator chains are used to avoid noise pikes mounting over the delicate signals, even more, tiny regulators are installed close to each critical component of each acquisition channel.
              
              Recommended Companies in Chile
             

              Contractor Company in Design of Multilayer PCBs, in all projects:

         DIVA     http://www.matharts.cl\diva.cl  Designer of multilayer PCBs, see link right here.

              
              Other Recommended Companies in Chile

              CIGA             http://www.ciga.cl/                  Manufacturer of multilayer printed circuit Boards
              Poirot              http://www.poirot.cl/                Vendor of precision PCB assembly equipment
              Axys               http://www.axys.cl                   Assembles PCBs including all kinds of SMT ICs

              
              Recommended Companies in the USA
              
              Manufacturers of high density multilayer PCBs including the most complex BGA ICs, both are located in San Jose CA. Silicon Valley:

              Accutrace                       http://www.accutrace.com/
              Sierra Proto Express       http://www.protoexpress.com/

              Special Soldering Services like soldering ICs packaged in large BGAs and QFN formats
              STI Electronics, Inc.       http://www.solderingtech.com/