Virtual Lab

Laboratory

Prototyping

PCBA prototyping equipment. A pick and place machine and a small reflow oven provide the capability to quickly execute prototype PCBA boards with components as small as 04-02. PCB's can be ordered in small batches from European suppliers and manual operations such a curing, potting and conformal coating can be executed in-house
Controlled linear and circular movement rail. A programmable, computer controlled rail provides circular and linear movement for range and range rate testing. The accuracy is sub mm for linear displacement for a length pf 2m and sub 1 deg. for circular movement with 360 deg. capability
FPGA development kit. For prototyping of FPGA systems CDS has at its disposal a full Xilinx ZCU102 Ultrascale+ development kit, which includes the ZCU102 development board, the AD-FMCOMMS5 analog RF front-end from ADI and the STAR-Dundee FMC SpW/SpaceFibre board
Wireless systems prototyping

The National Instruments (NI) infrastructure available at IntraSAT-Tech allows rapid wireless system prototyping. The SDR NI USRP modules combined with LabVIEW provide a flexible, cost-effective development platform that supports the implementation of a reconfigurable RF frontend composed of multiple synchronized Tx/Rx modules. The platform can be used for the development and testing of various algorithms and system architectures, allowing the customization of the solution to meet the application requirements. The NI testbed includes:

  • 8 NI USRPs, model 2954R (10MHz - 6GHz, up to 160MHz instantaneous BW, up to 200MS/s).
  • An NI PXIe-8880 controller (16 core Intel (Xeon) CPU processor @2.3GHz, 24GB RAM).
  • A synchronization subsystem (an NI CDA-2990 Octoclock and a USRP N2900).
  • The NI LabVIEW Communication System Design Suite 2.0 and MIMO Application Framework that can be integrated with MATLAB for complementary signal processing.

Mechanical Engineering

Design and control of mechanical systems.
Precision machine design.
Computational and simulation methods used to ensure the reliability and robustness of mechanical systems.
Manufacturing process, product design and development for mechanical systems. Tools: DMC 1035Veco Machining centre, CNC CTX 510 Ecoline, CadAdventure Creo 7.0.

Systems Testing Capability

Cryogenic level measurement of liquid nitrogen and liquid carbon monoxide. Cryogenic system setup under high vacuum control is already in use at the 13C isotope separation plant.
Thermal structure and heat leak detection already in use FLIR SC7000 with Indium Antimonide (InSb) detector, having a low noise levels as 20 mK. LiT is a non-contact technique used in the aircraft industry for defect detection.
The global concept of the technique developed within INCDTIM Cluj Napoca.

Electronics and computer science

Custom designed industrial data acquisition boards and software.
Design of data acquisition and process control systems.
System modeling and evaluation software for processes with high order transfer functions.
Custom PCB prototypes designed for cryogenic system setup under high vacuum control used at the 13C isotope separation plant.
Software design for 16/32 bit Microchip and Atmel microcontrollers
Computer board designed to ensure self-monitoring of the solar tracking system for Fresnel lens solar concentrators.
Custom design of encryption systems.
A prototype for a custom encryption platform developed based on RSA algorithm implementation.
Semiconductor intellectually property core design – IP core design.
Design of application specific IP cores for signal processing, automation and control using VHDL.
Design of digital hardware architectures for algorithms parallelization.
Behavioral and post place and route simulation of Ip cores. Series: Signals and Communication Technology
Offers numerous applicative examples developed within INCDTIM, making the text easily understandable.
Design of numerical algorithms and methods for complex systems.
Design and simulation of physical processes for accurate quantitative predictions of fluid dynamics, optical systems performance, thermal and electrical effects in complex systems.
Design and implementation of image processing algorithms for image enhancement, image segmentation, features extraction using PDE, neural networks, mathematical morphology, clustering procedures.
Implementation of both coding and decoding algorithms for high-throughput wireless communication, aiming error correction and secured data transmission.
Simulations for aerospace applications: thermo-mechanical, vibration analysis, stress analysis, crack propagation, stress intensity factor, cfd study of jet impingement, etc.
And an example of image processing workflow for oil slick detection using satellite imagery

Intra-satellite communications

Intra-satellite communications

IntraSAT-Tech uses a set of professional STARDundee instruments to simulate, develop and test SpW communication networks for spacecrafts. The SpW testbed includes a SpaceWire EGSE Device simulator (as the PDHU emulator), a SpaceWire-USB Brick Mk3 (as the CDHU emulator), a SpaceWire Link Analyser Mk2, and several SpW Laboratory Cables (1.5m).
Moreover, the IntraSAT-Tech team has acquired the necessary expertise to replace the wired SpW links with wireless ones (UWB or high throughput), ensuring the necessary data conversion by means of SpW-to/from-UART, SpW-to/from-PCIe, or SpW-to/from-Ethernet bridges. Two FMC SpaceWire Boards (SpW Interface) and two Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZCU102 FPGA Boards are used to ensure the connectivity and data conversion between the SpW equipment and the radio modules.
To test the performance in highly reflective environment, a satellite mockup is also available at IntraSAT-Tech.

Smart antenna systems development

Smart antenna systems development

IntraSAT-Tech provides the necessary know-how and infrastructure (hardware and software) for the design, development, and testing of smart antenna systems, including EM simulation and design of radiant elements, system integration, and complex algorithm development (direction finding and beamforming).

Advanced atmospheric channel modelling

Advanced atmospheric channel modelling

Several instruments are installed at IntraSAT-Tech to monitor, record, and assess radio signal propagation in various frequency bands.
NovAtel GPStation-6, a professional GNSS receiver, is used for ionospheric scintillation and total electron content monitoring. The measured parameters can be used in the development of ionospheric propagation models for HF transmissions.
A Q/V band receiver operating at 39GHz is installed to monitor the Alphasat TDP#5 beacon, while the Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station provides precise weather information. The corelated propagation and weather data are used to develop a Q/V band channel model for the climate of Cluj-Napoca.

Radio Network Planning

Radio network planning

Network simulation is a cost-effective way to develop the early stages of network centric systems. IntraSAT-Tech employs QualNet Developer 6.1 to design protocols, create and animate network scenarios, and analyze the performance of satellite, cellular, metropolitan, local, and sensors networks.
For a more realistic approach, EXata 4.2. network emulator is used to inject real traffic in the designed simulated networks and evaluate their behavior.
A custom satellite library is used to simulate outage events and traffic management for smart site diversity in high throughput satellite systems.

Space surveillance and tracking

Space surveillance and tracking

In close collaboration with BITNET CCSS, IntraSAT-Tech has developed an SDR-based multifeed reception system that increases the field of view and detection probability in space surveillance and tracking. The solution can be employed for general satellite tracking or in bi-static and multi-static radar systems.

Electromagnetic Compatibility Testing

RF measurement equipment. Spectrum analyzers and signal generators are available to perform conducted and radiated RF measurements. EMC tests and spectral mask conformity can be performed up to 20 GHz
RF testing and measurements

A state-of-art platform for wireless communications and RF test and measurements is available at IntraSAT-Tech including professional Rohde&Schwarz instrumentation, such as: FPC1000 Spectrum analyzer, ZVL13 Vector Network Analyzer, RTO2064 oscilloscope, RTC1002 oscilloscope, TS-EMF EMF Measurement System.