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StatusOngoing
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Status date2008-03-07
This development project envisages evolving previously developed Burst Mode Demodulator, version 1 (BMD-V1), in order to provide the demodulation of a complete bandwidth of 20 MHz, independent of the configuration of the carriers within that bandwidth. This evolution relies on the design of the first version of Burst Mode Demodulator BMD-V1 equipment for synchronisation and decoding. The design requires a complete re-definition, design and development of the digital filter functions. It aims at the reception of up to 256 carriers, without increase of the equipment cost.
Economic motivation
- Positioning on the large telecom operator market requires a drastic reduction of the equipment cost-per-carrier. The proposed bandwidth demodulation approach provides a cost reduction, compared with the BMD-V1 capabilities implementation.
- Improvement of the equipment technical performance in answer to the Customer's requirement for higher bandwidth efficiency.
- The product is a key element in Alcatel Space A9780 R2.x multimedia system for which it has been selected after intense evaluation.
- Alternatively the equipment will complete the ABSp offer to network integrators for both star network configurations as well as for future meshed network configurations.
Technical objectives
A significant cost reduction of the investment cost of Burst Mode Demodulator per carrier is offered to integrators of DVB-RCS compliant systems. This major feature is complemented by additional functionalities and performance improvements.
This feature turns BMD-V2 into a key building block of Alcatel's A9780 R2.x multimedia system.
Other requirements driving this developme
The main difference in the digital part of the Burst Mode Demodulator between version 1 and version 2 (=bandwidth-efficient version) is the Channel selection / matched filtering module. While in BMD V1, the Channel Selection and Matched Filtering block is composed of four receive chains, in BMD-V2 the channel selection will allow to select and filter all channels located within the input bandwidth of 20 MHz.
Two categories of applications are identified for the burst demodulator :
- Equipment which are commercially available as stand-alone equipment.
The BMD-V2 is intended to be sold as an individual building block. - Equipment which are an integral part of integrated system architecture.
This last category is not directly considered as a competition. These equipments are in general not made available on the market as stand-alone units. Provided technical excellence and competitive advantage can be provided by the BMD-V2, these integrated systems supplier could also become potential targets for BMD-V2.
Besides the adaptation of the filtering algorithms of the BMD-V1.x, the following improvements will also be implemented:
- The burst demodulator equipment, housed in a 1U drawer, will be able to demodulate up to 256 channels in a 20MHz receive band,
- Improvement of the Viterbi Decoder performance for short bursts,
- Improvement of the Turbo Decoder performance,
- Addition of a redundant Ethernet interface and a separate Management Ethernet interface,
- Merging of the hardware coprocessor blocks into larger and faster FPGA devices,
- Remote download of the FPGA image via the industrial PC over the PCI bus,
- Addition of a redundant ASI output for distribution of received MPEG cells,
- Addition of a watchdog function for use in a redundant system,
- Support for the demodulation of bursts when spectrum inversion occurs,
- Modification of the interface between ARM processor and the Industrial PC: improving the throughput to allow for the increased traffic between the ARM processor and the IPC,
- Capability to configure the BMD to be able to handle a larger number of different burst types without need for re-configuration of the unit allowing the BMD to be used for adaptive rate coding in the return link,
- Extension of the current version to extend the compliance with the DVB-RCS standard:
- Support of QPSK preamble symbols,
- Support of up to 256 preamble symbols,
- Redesign of the analogue front-end to follow the latest component evolutions and to improve the phase noise for the low data rate requirements,
- Support of QPSK as well as BPSK demodulation (although the DVB-RCS standard imposes QPSK as the modulation scheme Alcatel has identified markets where poor link quality and terminal ODU sizing impose BPSK as a modulation scheme),
- The design of a "Burst Configuration Tool" to configure the Burst Mode De
Milestone Name | Date |
Kick off | August 2004 |
Baseline Design Review Meeting (BDR) | December 2004 |
Mid term Review (MTR) | July 2005 |
Prototype Acceptance Review (PAR) | October 2005 |
Final Review 2 (FR) | March 2006 |
First Industrialised BMD-V2 equipment was ready in June 2006. The Final Review passed successfully and BMD-V2 is available as a product.