1. 2PAD’s Beamforming Software
Design and Implementation
Aziz AhmedSaid (UoM)
Other Contributors
Stef Salvini, Fred Dulwich, Ben Mort (OERC), Chris Shenton (UoM)
Presented by Chris Shenton (UoM)

2. Objectives
To design and implement a real-time 2 polarisation beamformer on 2PAD’s processing engine;
To design and implement the data transfer, storage and display software to run on the back end host computer;
To test, verify and evaluate 2PAD’s performance.

3. System Overview LNA Multi Digital & Channel Signal Signal ADC
Condition
Multi
Channel
ADC
Digital
Signal
Processor

4. Our task: LNA Multi Digital & Channel Signal Signal ADC Processor
Condition
Multi
Channel
ADC
Digital
Signal
Processor

5. 2PAD’s Processing Engine

6. Software Design Flow

7. Software Kernel and Libraries
More efficient: Simple design, less latency, optimised for speed;
Better usage of resources: Memory, thread units;
Full control of the chip;
Full access to all the software which enables further customisation/tuning for every application;

8. Typical Beamforming Scheme

9. Our Beamforming Scheme

10. Logical Mapping on the Cyclops System

11. Physical Mapping

12. Data Path

13. Data Flow

14. Data Streams Structure

15. The Beamformer We have a fully working beamformer: 2 Polarisations;
1,2,4 or 8 beams (more is possible);
NumberOfBeams X NumberOfFreqBands = K
(K represents the total bandwidth per polarisation)
K ~= 300 for 1 beam and goes up to 800 for 8 beams (these are just initial estimations, based on simulations);
For example for 8 beams: 100MHz per beam.

16. Simulation Setup

17. Simulation Results
2 Polarisations, 2 Frames, 8 Beams per frame, 64 Frequency bands per beam.

18. Simulation Results (Zoom)

19. Summary
We have designed and implemented a customised and highly optimised software kernel and libraries for the Cyclops.
We have designed, implemented and fully tested a multi-beam, 2 polarisation beamformer for the Cyclops system.
We have shown good correlation between theoretical simulation and simulated hardware.

20. Future work Create the Host computer software;
Port the beamformer to the real hardware;
Perform real test, verification and evaluation of the beamformer.
Perform code and datapath profiling to fully understand the power vs performance characteristics of the system.