Author

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Bioinformatics & Computational Biology

First Advisor

Julio Urbina

Abstract

Digital Receivers are commercially available, cost effective solutions that are becoming commonplace in modern data acquisition systems (MDAS). The digital receiver has the ability to be reconfigured via software, making MDAS flexible for a variety of applications. This thesis describes the design and implementation of a complete MDAS using a general purpose computer (GPC) equipped with a digital receiver card. This system will replace the older DAS (baseband sampling) used by the Space and Atmospheric Science (SAS) group at the Arecibo Observatory (AO). Emphasis is placed on a generic system easily adaptable to a specific application with minimal effort. A full discussion of the system will be given with concentration on the receiver's capabilities and software design. Algorithms and design strategy are discussed to properly document optimizations and features required by the system. Finally, we present two radar observations with this system and illustrate results.

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