Senior Project -- Beginner Question

Hello all,

I'm a undergrad student going for my EE degree. I'm doing some research this summer to see what exactly i want to do for my senior project. I've been tinkering around with the idea of possibly tracking NOAA weather satellites. .

What i think would be pretty cool to have a antenna pointed at the horizon and when it grabs a signal (NOAA Polar satellites operate at 137MHz) i can perform some FFTs, then as the frequency increases due to the doppler effect i can have some servos adjust my antenna to the correct position to track the satellite.

This is a extremely rough idea that i haven't looked too much into yet, but it has brought me to the question as to what hardware i could use to implement accurate FFTs in the 130 MHz+ range.

This would be a pretty fun project to attempt. I've been brainstorming ideas for the past few weeks and this has been the coolest one i can think of. I'm looking for a project that is entertaining and has some real learning value to it, something i would be proud to bring up during interviews.

Any advice, suggestions or input is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help and time.

-Jorge Start a New Thread

Hello all,

I have new and original ADZS-100B-BUNDLE - the Blackfin emulator and
Visual DSP software (full version) with valid key (not activated). The
Bundle was not used. I would like to sell it because I am involved into
Sharc-based project rather than in Blacfin based one. The AD price is
995$ - my price is about 800$ (can be nogotiated).

Best regards,
Maciej Kulesza Start a New Thread

Howdy Jorge,

Yes, that would be a cool project! Think about how you will detect the
signal, how much bandwidth your FFT needs to cover and the size of each
bin. Then look at the sample rate from the detector, and how much memory
you need for your algorithm to work. What will be the delay between
detection, computation and motor drive? How fast do you need to actually
move the antenna, and how much time do you have to compute the signal
shift?

Even a 1GHz DSP will have a hard time with a direct digital conversion,
but an FPGA with lots of multipliers could do that. If you can use an
analog front end with a local oscillator to shift the signal to a lower
band then a fast DSP will work.

There are lots of ways to track the signal - but what else do you need to
do? Figure out what the advantages and disadvantages of several methods
would be and look at the over all cost difference of each method. If you
actually had to get the information contained in the signal, what your
problem look like? If you can explain those things (but not do them) you
will have one supurb project that proves you know what engineering is all
about.

Good luck! Should be a lot of fun!

Patience, persistence, truth,
Dr. mike
On Sun, 20 Jun 2010, j...@gmail.com wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm a undergrad student going for my EE degree. I'm doing some research this summer to see what exactly i want to do for my senior project. I've been tinkering around with the idea of possibly tracking NOAA weather satellites. .
>
> What i think would be pretty cool to have a antenna pointed at the horizon and when it grabs a signal (NOAA Polar satellites operate at 137MHz) i can perform some FFTs, then as the frequency increases due to the doppler effect i can have some servos adjust my antenna to the correct position to track the satellite.
>
> This is a extremely rough idea that i haven't looked too much into yet, but it has brought me to the question as to what hardware i could use to implement accurate FFTs in the 130 MHz+ range.
>
> This would be a pretty fun project to attempt. I've been brainstorming ideas for the past few weeks and this has been the coolest one i can think of. I'm looking for a project that is entertaining and has some real learning value to it, something i would be proud to bring up during interviews.
>
> Any advice, suggestions or input is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help and time.
>
> -Jorge
> Start a New Thread

Jorge-

> I'm a undergrad student going for my EE degree. I'm doing some research
> this summer to see what exactly i want to do for my senior project. I've
> been tinkering around with the idea of possibly tracking NOAA weather
> satellites. .
>
> What i think would be pretty cool to have a antenna pointed at the
> horizon and when it grabs a signal (NOAA Polar satellites operate at
> 137MHz) i can perform some FFTs, then as the frequency increases due to
> the doppler effect i can have some servos adjust my antenna to the
> correct position to track the satellite.
>
> This is a extremely rough idea that i haven't looked too much into
> yet, but it has brought me to the question as to what hardware i could
> use to implement accurate FFTs in the 130 MHz+ range.
>
> This would be a pretty fun project to attempt. I've been brainstorming
> ideas for the past few weeks and this has been the coolest one i can
> think of. I'm looking for a project that is entertaining and has some
> real learning value to it, something i would be proud to bring up during
> interviews.
>
> Any advice, suggestions or input is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your
> help and time.

Sounds like a good project for Sr. EE. But I wouldn't use a DSP EVM or DSK board for
this, suggest instead GNU Radio.

-Jeff Start a New Thread