Design and implementation of embedded software-defined radio for satellites

Abstract

This project aims to present an embedded software defined radio (SDR) where a host computer is not needed for its operation. This setup allows the radio to be embedded in a micro satellite where size, weight and power is limited, while maintaining the high performance and flexibility of an SDR. The SDR was designed around AD9364, an integrated transceiver IC by Analog Devices. The main processor and processing logic used is a Zynq-7020 SoC by Xilinx, which includes both field programmable gate array (FPGA) fabric and a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor on the same IC. This project was divided into two stages, where the first stage involves the design of the PCB and the second stage of the project involves the design of the FPGA logic and the application code running on the ARM core.