Communication and Debug Platform for Smart Antenna DOA System: UART System Design in VHDL and Debug Platform in Labview (Paperback)

This work is a simple yet insightful application of VHDL prototyping in a hardware design project using the Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA. A Smart Antenna System calculates the Direction of Arrival (DOA) of incoming receiver signals by implementing certain protocols or algorithms. Implementation of the protocols is executed on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform or a custom Digital Signal Processor (DSP). The FPGA or DSP system performs operations on the incoming input signal at the smart antenna receiver. The result of this process is transferred to the component of the system called the Beamformer. The Beamformer is the control logic that aligns the transmitter in the DOA based on these inputs. A UART communication channel has been designed on the FPGA to provide data path and control logic between the receiving port and Beamformer of a Smart Antenna DOA system. This project also features a debugging system that enables the user to have access to a LabView GUI. The GUI reads and displays information about the data being sent and received over the UART Channel, helping the user to troubleshoot and analyze the system.

這項工作是在使用Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA進行硬體設計項目時，對VHDL原型進行簡單而深入的應用。智能天線系統通過實施特定的協議或算法來計算接收器信號的到達方向（DOA）。協議的實施在可編程閘陣列（FPGA）平台或自定義數字信號處理器（DSP）上執行。FPGA或DSP系統對智能天線接收器的輸入信號進行操作。此過程的結果被傳輸到系統的一個組件，稱為波束形成器。波束形成器是根據這些輸入對發射器進行DOA對齊的控制邏輯。在FPGA上設計了一個UART通信通道，用於提供智能天線DOA系統的接收端口和波束形成器之間的數據路徑和控制邏輯。該項目還具有一個調試系統，使用戶可以訪問LabView GUI。該GUI讀取並顯示有關在UART通道上發送和接收的數據的信息，幫助用戶進行故障排除和系統分析。