0721 Mw Cesium Astro Sdr1001 Promo 60f1fa15b211b

Space-Ready SDR Module Carries Open Reconfigurable FPGA

July 16, 2021

In a credit-card-sized module, CesiumAstro's SDR-1001 delivers four Tx and four Rx channels of SDR for LEO satellites and airborne missions.

David Maliniak

Related To: Microwaves & RF

In its SDR-1001, a flight-ready, credit-card-sized modular software-defined radio (SDR) module, CesiumAstro delivers four transmit and four receive channels tunable from 300 MHz to 6 GHz for commercial, government, and defense applications. The module, which is tested to NASA GEVS standards, ships with a default BPSK/QPSK modem and optional FPGA Developer Toolkit enabling custom waveform development.

Meant for low-earth-orbit satellites and airborne missions, the SDR-1001, which weighs just 100 grams, offers custom waveform support with 70% of its FPGA resources available for custom designs. It integrates a flexible RF front-end with high-performance FPGA to support a 5-to-7-year mission duration. Mil-Spec connectors provide access to RF signals and enable both SpaceWire and Ethernet connectivity. Integrated redundancy and failover logic provide resiliency from radiation events with onboard telemetry delivering system health and power management information.

The pre-loaded reference modem functionality provides a carrier sense multiple access (CSMA)-based, multi-point mesh networking capability out of the box. When two SDRs establish a connection, data packets from Ethernet, SpaceWire, or serial ports are routed across the link. The company is also developing turnkey waveform support for DVB-S2, DVB-S2X, and CCSDS with Tx data rates up to 500 Mb/s.

An available FPGA development kit allows communications engineers to build and deploy custom waveforms on the SDR-1001’s open and reconfigurable FPGA. The underlying board-support package (BSP) firmware provides a simplified API for controlling the RF front end and data management while enabling full access to baseband IQ data for custom waveform and modem development. Support and training are provided with the FPGA Development Kit to accelerate user success.

The SDR-1001 is offered as a stand-alone module, but also forms the backbone of other Cesium products, including fully integrated L-Band, S-Band, X-Band, Ku-Band, and Ka-Band connectivity and phased-array solutions. Producing low-SWaP, plug-and-play hardware with high-volume manufacturing techniques, Cesium can support volume orders for LEO space and airborne applications.

About the Author

David Maliniak | Executive Editor, Microwaves & RF

I am Executive Editor of Microwaves & RF, an all-digital publication that broadly covers all aspects of wireless communications. More particularly, we're keeping a close eye on technologies in the consumer-oriented 5G, 6G, IoT, M2M, and V2X markets, in which much of the wireless market's growth will occur in this decade and beyond. I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, developers, and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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About me:

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy, leaving to rejoin the EOEM B2B publishing world in January 2020. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.