RF Engines wins U.K. government grant to develop wideband, flexible digital receivers

NEWPORT, U.K., 26 July 2007. RF Engines Limited (RFEL), specialists in high-performance signal processing design, has won a research grant from the U.K. government. This grant by the South East Development Agency (SEEDA) is to undertake research into a flexible receiver architecture that is reconfigurable on-the-fly. The project draws on RFEL's techniques in signal processing on FPGAs and RF design expertise.

The architecture will be used to create a portable digital receiver that will be capable of scanning the spectrum from zero to 5.84 GHz.

RFEL's design approach combines analog and digital elements to enable re-configuration of the system for different applications as required, via software/firmware. The resulting software-defined radio (SDR) increases the amount of digital signal processing to move the analog/digital boundary closer to the antenna, reducing the complexity and limitations of the RF front-end. It should also deliver a solution that has lower power consumption, smaller size, wideband performance, and enhanced system performance.

The project is likely to lead to the development and production of a number of receivers.

"For some time now, customers have been asking us to provide complete turnkey solutions which integrate our firmware designs," explains John Summers, RFEL's CEO.