TDMA and Radar Processing

All Red Rapids signal acquisition and generation products offer multiple options to start and stop channel processing. The simplest control is a software command to capture a stream of digital samples from an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) or send a stream of samples to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). A hardware trigger is also commonly used to synchronise channel processing with an external event. Time division multiple access (TDMA) signals pose a specific challenge to general purpose hardware. These waveforms include a precision timing requirement beyond just starting and stopping the channel. Unique time slots are defined within a repeating frame so that a single frequency can service multiple subscribers. It is imperative that each subscriber remains confined to their assigned time slot to avoid interference. Radars employ range gates that also rely on predefined time slots to collect return signals. The pulse repetition interval (PRI) may be divided into multiple gates that are delayed in time from the transmitted pulse. The Red Rapids event scheduler allows precision timing of receiver or transmitter time slots encapsulated within a repeating frame. Up to 512 independent slots can be defined within the frame using the ADC or DAC sample clock as the time base. For more information, please download this free white paper.