ESA presentation about
- IP Core ESA portfolio
- New FPGA, ASIC, IP Cores development standard
- RnD FPGA activities on-going
NanoXplore will provide an overview and an update on the latest rad-hard FPGA NG-ULTRA and ULTRA300.
The presentation will cover the following elements:
• Component overview and key technology differentiators
• Update on ESCC 9030 qualification
• New space industrialization
• Radiation performance
• Software tools and ecosystem
In this paper the architecture of a new generation router has been presented, It is reconfigurable as it is implemented on a mixed signal Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform. It is meant to be used in a decentralized structure of new space applications in order to get fast, efficient and reliable transfer of the network packets.
This project is related to a radiation tolerant...
At Thales Alenia Space Italia, implementation of FEC codecs on FPGA in collaboration with ESA and academic institutions dates back various decades [1],[2] and has contributed to CCSDS standards definition [3]. TAS-I has implemented PCCC (Parallel Concatenated Convolutional Codes) and SCCC (Serially Concatenated Convolutional Codes) codecs and, most recently, LDPC.
While the FPGA technology...
With 3GPP Release 17, satellites were incorporated in the 5G New Radio standard. This significantly strengthens the role of satellite connectivity for future mobile networks. 5G and 6G non-terrestrial networks bridge gaps in terrestrial network coverage, ensuring seamless connectivity in unconnected zones. Due to this, the ongoing project ESA 6G LINO focuses on creating an open experimental...
In recent years, the space community has shown a growing interest in the use of AI onboard satellites. FPGAs have emerged as competitive accelerators for these algorithms in the space harsh environment, and methods for automating their design have gained significant attention. Among the available frameworks, FPG-AI stands out as a promising solution for facilitating the deployment of AI in...
To address the growing demand for precise global positioning in commercial and scientific applications, the German Aerospace center (DLR) proposed the Kepler concept to increase the end-user performance of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) service. By utilizing optical links between satellites for precise time transfer and ranging Kepler enhances the performance, enabling down to...
The growing significance of small satellites in space missions motivates the definition of streamlined CubeSat platforms that emphasizes cost-effective and flexible communication solutions. Central to this effort is the use of FPGAs, chosen for their capacity to integrate commercial off-the-shelf components while meeting stringent performance and reliability demands. By capitalizing on...
Spacecraft in-orbit servicing is a vital technology for extending satellite lifespans by enabling repairs, upgrades, and refueling. Accurate pose estimation, which determines the relative position and orientation of spacecraft, is crucial for such missions but poses challenges in space environments due to varying lighting, shadows, and high precision requirements. Traditional computer vision...
In space applications, SRAM-based FPGA devices are vulnerable to radiation-induced soft errors such as single event upsets (SEUs) and multiple bit upsets (MBUs), which can lead to system malfunctions. We have developed an experimental setup to perform fault injection campaigns in the configuration memory using the AMD Soft Error Mitigation (SEM) IP Core, emulating SEUs and MBUs in commercial...
Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are emerging as a disruptive technology in artificial intelligence, offering a biologically inspired approach that enables energy-efficient and event-driven computation. Their potential impact on spatial applications, particularly for anomaly detection in satellite data, is significant. Traditional deep learning models often require extensive computational...
Commercial-of-the-shelf computer modules (CMs) bear the potential to bring
unprecedented computing power to space. Combining CM redundancy for criti-
cal and detect-recover schemes for less critical operations, we highlight how CMs
can match the safety of radiation-hard CMs, at a fraction of costs. We combine
CMs with an FPGA voter to provide fault masking through agreement...
The Photospheric Magnetic Field Imager (PMI) will be one of the payload instruments on board the European Space Agency (ESA) VIGIL mission. It will provide vector magnetograms and tachograms of the solar photospheric plasma as valuable information for being used in space weather diagnostics.
The PMI instrument consists of an Electronics Unit and an Optics Unit, which are connected through a...
Single Event Upsets (SEUs) affecting configuration memory (CRAM) of programmable logic are a main source of faults that eventually lead to the system's failure due to hardware design corruption. The lack of information on how resources are programmed in CRAM significantly limits the ability to develop accurate reliability evaluation methodologies and tailored mitigation strategies, which could...
In an era where technology underpins nearly every aspect of our lives, the importance of dependable hardware and software has never been more critical to ensure safety and security. The rapid pace of technological advancement often outstrips the ability to implement rigorous testing and validation processes, making it difficult to ensure that systems are both reliable and secure. At the...
AMD Versal adaptive SoCs offer a combination of scalar and vector processing resources along with traditional FPGA logic gates, memory and DSP resources, providing highly capable platforms for integration of dense signal processing and AI inferencing in space-flight applications. In this presentation we review the latest qualification and radiation data for the AMD XQR Versal adaptive SoC...
In this presentation the use of Open Standards Based Modules to accelerate the development cycle of Space Applications using AMD Versal devices will be discussed. The presentation starts with a success story: a currently in-orbit hyperspectral sensor on a now extended mission on the ISS (International Space Station), based on SpaceVPX and AMD Zynq7 technology. Following this, future steps...
We will present the latest space grade power architecture supporting an AMD/Versal ACAP FPGA featuring a PMBus based power management infrastructure. Radiation performance data will be presented for all utilized PMICs as well as for the PMBus controller targeting new space applications for low earth orbit employment. Our modular architecture approach consists of a main FPGA board and an...
The AMD Versal radiation-tolerant FPGA family represents a cutting-edge platform for high-performance applications. Versal offers unparalleled capabilities on space-qualified devices, featuring integrated GTY transceivers that support lane speeds of up to 25 Gbit/s. These attributes make them ideal for implementing advanced spacecraft communication protocols such as SpaceFibre (SpFi)....
ProtoSDK is a low-code software development kit (SDK) aimed at simplifying the deployment of deep learning (DL) models on FPGA-based devices for space-related applications. By removing the necessity for specialized programming knowledge, ProtoSDK enhances accessibility and facilitates seamless workflows from selecting a model to deploying it on an FPGA.
The SDK enables an end user to select...
The increasing complexity of deep learning models has created a demand for high-performance computing platforms that can efficiently execute inference tasks. FPGA's flexibility made them an appealing choice for accelerating such tasks. Recently, we also witnessed a growing interest in RISC-V-based solutions combined with dedicated AI accelerators to enhance computational capabilities. While...
The space ecosystem is rapidly evolving, driven by the New Space paradigm, which emphasizes the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and more powerful, reconfigurable payloads. This shift enables missions to dynamically adapt and enhance their capabilities in orbit. However, reconfigurable architectures based on SRAM-based FPGAs introduce security challenges, particularly...
In recent years, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become increasingly prominent in the space industry. Its ability to perform better than traditional methods, in particular for image processing, has further accelerated its development within the sector. In this context, the architecture of a spacecraft’s processing system is crucial in determining both the efficiency of inference...
Frontgrade (formerly CAES, Cobham, Aeroflex, UTMC) pioneers the future and underpins many of the world’s most critical missions. Our radhard/radtolerant microelectronics empower the world’s leading spacecraft: from leading high throughput commercial communications satellites, earth observation satellites, manned space, deep space exploration, and the latest new space constellations.
Too...
Requirements Tracking (aka Specification coverage) is getting more and more attention, and is critical for space projects. Unfortunately, tracking Verification vs Requirements is often handled manually, which is very time-consuming, error-prone and boring.
**UVVM’s Specification coverage was developed in cooperation with ESA to provide a really efficient solution
to Requirements...
Hyperspectral sensors are playing an increasingly relevant role as part of the space missions payload. They acquire vast amounts of data, which are useful in multiple applications but at the same time are difficult to manage because of the limited capacity of both communication channels and on-board storage. Data compression thus becomes mandatory to reduce raw data volume. And with the latest...
With the ever-increasing complexity of digital designs targeting both ASIC and FPGA technologies, the verification gap is not-so-slowly reaching the space sector. Although the space sector has been traditionally driven by rad-hard designs and devices that traded design capabilities and performance for radiation tolerance, recent advances in both microelectronics technology and usage of...
AGGA - Advanced GPS / Galileo ASIC denotes a family of ASICs for processing satellite navigation signals. The development started with AGGA-2 already before the year 2000, and continued with AGGA-3 in 2004 and AGGA-4 in 2010. In 2022 ESA initiated an activity to convert the AGGA-4 ASIC RTL sources to an IP core for a range of FPGAs used in ESA space missions; this work was implemented...
Abstract
Developing and deploying a verification methodology can be costly and time consuming. Going without one will be even more costly due to bugs escaping into production hardware systems.
Open Source VHDL Verification Methodology (OSVVM) provides the VHDL community with an already developed, open-source solution. OSVVM implements all of the capabilities of a modern...
Space applications are increasingly incorporating analysis and decision-making capabilities to derive insights from data flows. This requires designers to adopt advanced technology that accelerates design, verification, and debugging of system designs.
• Hardware: Architectural investigation, IP integration, advanced verification, fast debug, and efficiently using the integrated hard blocks...
The RT PolarFire® family of SoC FPGAs represents a new generation of radiation-tolerant embedded systems. Built on Microchip's flight-proven RT PolarFire FPGA fabric, these devices offer outstanding power efficiency, high reliability, best-in-class security and enhanced radiation performance, making them ideal for deployment in demanding environments with broad offerings for Low Earth Orbit...
The increasing complexity of space missions demands sophisticated hardware solutions, with Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) serving as a cornerstone. However, the intricate nature of FPGA development necessitates structured engineering approaches to guarantee reliability and performance in the harsh space environment. Systems engineering principles are paramount for:
- **Managing...
The increasing complexity of space-grade FPGAs and the growing demand for reliable and efficient radiation mitigation strategies pose significant challenges for development teams. Traditional approaches to selective radiation mitigation, such as expert-driven analysis and verification, are no longer scalable or repeatable for the new breed of devices being sent into space. The challenges...
Higher-level methodologies, such as model-based design, enable the faster development of complex hardware-software FPGA designs while maintaining a reasonable quality of results compared to lower-level approaches.
In this presentation, we introduce the SpaceStudio virtual platform, which includes a specialized space toolkit to complement its ecosystem. This toolkit integrates the RTEMS...
The main objective of this activity was to perform a technology assessment of Achronix FPGA-based solution for Ethernet layer 2 switch, targeting to meet a data rate up to 100 Gbps per single channel. Assessment consisted of implementation, simulation and breadboard validation using commercially available BittWare VectorPath S7t-VG6 accelerator card, with the Achronix Speedster AC7t1500 FPGA,...
The design and verification of FPGA-based systems for space applications rely on complex toolchains that translate high-level logic into hardware implementations. Typically, only a single synthesis, placement, and routing tool is available for a given FPGA, making it difficult to assess how design choices and toolchain behavior interact. The availability of multiple toolchains allows...
TASTE is an open-source framework for Model-Based development of accelerators used in space applications. It provides a seamless workflow that integrates design, development, and deployment while bridging multiple existing technologies instead of introducing a new modeling language.
This presentation explores the integration of ONNX-based machine learning (ML) models into the TASTE toolchain...
Establising digital trust on a computing platform benefits from hardware root-of-trust (HW-RoT) situated on the computing platform itself. Examples of HW-RoT solutions include TPM, DICE, OpenTitan and Caliptra. These offer a wide range of security and cryptography services for a host system. However, the verification and validation of these solutions may prove challenging, especially when...
The evolving landscape of space system applications demands flexibility, high-performance, and robustness, particularly in high rate data acquisition, processing and transfer. Traditional FPGA families struggle to meet these demanding requirements due to the limitation of internal resources and the fixed nature of one-time programmable FPGAs.
Microchip's RTG4 FPGAs offer a solution to these...
The Comet Interceptor mission, part of ESA’s F-class portfolio, aims to visit a long-period comet, originating from the Oort Cloud and entering the Solar System for the first time. The mission consists of three spacecraft—main spacecraft A and two ‘sub-spacecraft,’ B1 and B2. Spacecraft B2 is equipped with the Optical Periscopic Imager for Comets (OPIC), developed by the University of Tartu,...
In the New Space era, the challenge of determining the need for high-cost radiation-tolerant components versus the viability of using more affordable Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) parts is increasingly relevant. This decision-making process highlights the need for effective radiation monitoring within satellite payloads to ensure the reliability of systems operating in harsh...
