The design of China Reconfigurable Analog-digital backEnd for FAST

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and implementation of the China Reconfigurable Analog-digital backEnd (CRANE) for the FAST telescope, enabling flexible and versatile astronomical observations across a wide frequency band.

Contribution

It introduces a reconfigurable analog-digital backend system for FAST, integrating hardware and software to support flexible bandwidth and observation requirements.

Findings

System successfully covers 3 GHz band of FAST

Hardware and software platform achieves flexible bandwidth adjustments

System supports diverse astronomical observation modes

Abstract

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope(FAST) was launched on September 25,2016.From early 2017,we began to use the FAST wideband receiver,which was designed,constructed and installed on the FAST in Guizhou,China.The front end of the receiver is composed an uncooled Quad Ridge Flared Horn feed(QRFH) with the frequency range of 270 to 1620 MHz,and a cryostat operating at 10 K.Stephen et al. 2016We have coop-erated with the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to developed the China Reconfigurable ANalog-digital backEnd.The system covers the 3 GHz operating band of FAST.The hardware part of the backend includes an Analog Front-end Board,a wideband high precision Analog Digital Converter,and a FAST Digital Back-end.Analog circuit boards, field programmable gate arrays, and control computers form a set of hardware, software, and firmware platforms to achieve flexible bandwidth requirements through parameter changes. It is also suitable for the versatility of different astronomical observations, and can meet specific requirements. This paper briefly introduces the hardware and software of CRANE, as well as some observations of the system.