Satellite Signal Detection Design on Spartan3 FPGA

Abstract

Satellite signal detection is a significant task in satellite communication as well as navigation systems including GPS. Weak satellite signals in the presence of noise need signal processing techniques and computational methods to detect them efficiently fast. In this project, we are presenting the design and simulation of a satellite signal detection system using Python on Spartan-3 architecture without using hardware. This will be done by simulating the detection process through modeling. This involves using Python-based signal processing libraries (e.g. NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib) to simulate satellite signals, noise environments and detection algorithms in a complete system. The simulated prototype executes important functions such as signal generation, noise filtering, correlation analysis, and threshold-based determination in order to detect satellite signals. You can use the processing steps to simulate the functional behavior of modules that you would typically implement on a Spartan-3 FPGA to enable a shake-down of your design prior to implementation onto hardware. This behavior in the simulated Python framework suggests that our method can detect satellite signals and capture their features even with noise present. Visualization tools assist in exploring with signal patterns, correlation peaks, and detection accuracy. In this context, our software-based system minimizes the complexity and cost of development, creating an environment to develop and improve satellite signal detection strategies before transferring them to their field deployable FPGA platforms.