Casper Instrumentation at Green Bank

John Ford September 28, 2009

The NRAO is operated for the National Science Foundation (NSF) by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), under a cooperative agreement.

GBT PTCS Conceptual Design Review April 8/9, 2003 Green Bank

Outline

• NRAO • Configurable Instrument Collection for Agile Data Acquisition (CICADA) – Green Bank Ultimate Pulsar Processing Instrument (GUPPI) – West Virginia University Pulsar Processing Instrument (WUPPI) – GUPPI - 2 – Future instruments

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NRAO Mission

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The (US) National Radio Astronomy Observatory enables forefront research into the Universe at radio wavelengths.

In partnership with the scientific community, we:

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provide world leading telescopes, instrumentation and expertise,

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train the next generation of scientists and engineers, and

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promote astronomy to foster a more scientifically literate society .

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Aperture Synthesis Telescopes

• Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) – Network of 10 telescopes spread over United States – Resolution of a 5000 mile diameter telescope •

Highest Resolution of any telescope on earth or in space

– Sometimes the GBT becomes part of this array • (E) Very Large Array (VLA)

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Green Bank Facilities

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2700 Acre site in Pocahontas County

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8 Radio Telescopes on site National Radio Quiet Zone

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150 mile rectangle centered around Green Bank and Sugar Grove

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Provides protection for the sensitive receivers on the telescopes

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Green Bank Science Center

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Panoramic View of Green Bank Telescopes

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CICADA

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C

onfigurable

I

nstrument

C

ollection for

A

gile

D

ata

A

cquisition – FPGA based data acquisition and processing – Uses CASPER tools and hardware • Umbrella program for organizing FPGA projects – –

Purchase/obtain boards, software, development systems 3 ROACH, 2 BEE2, 5 iBOB, 6 ADC, 3 ADC-2, 10 GbE switches, servers, etc.

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CICADA People

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GUPPI

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Randy McCullogh, Jason Ray , Patrick Brandt, Ron Duplain, Paul Demorest, Scott Ransom WUPPI/43 meter stuff

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Shilpa Bollineni, Glen Langston, Paul Demorest WVU Folks

CICADA Projects

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Spectrometer Proposals

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KFPA backend Replacement for GBT Spectrometer Event capture machines

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Used for transient events Pulsar machines

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Incoherent machine (GUPPI, WUPPI) Coherent dedispersion machine GUPPI-2

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GUPPI

Sampler( iBOB)

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GUPPI BEE2 XAUI alignment

GUPPI BEE2 XAUI alignment

GUPPI BEE2 signal processing design

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GUPPI BEE2 signal combining FPGA

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GUPPI command prompt GUPPI Software Overview *.nrao.edu

GUPPI GBT M&C Manager Python SOAP client C++ SOAP client Ethernet beef.gb.nrao.edu

guppi controller • • • • modules: DAQ POWER SYNTH BEE2 Unix socket shared memory guppi_statusd gets GBTStatus shared memory guppi_daq • threads: net • • disk fold (for folding mode) will also run on GPU nodes in GUPPI Phase II 100 MbE 10 GbE telnet over Ethernet Clock Synthesizer

GBT IF

telnet over Ethernet Power Strip clock input equipment ADCs power IBOBs XAUI no custom controller software XAUI out-of-band control bits BEE2 runs guppi controller on Debian + BORPH O/S systems control signals data streams notes/comments .

GUPPI Status

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Currently available GUPPI Modes

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128 to 4096 channels 2 polarizations 100 to 800 MHz bandwidth Full Stokes or Total Intensity Only Decimation in frequency and time in CPU Records up to ~250 MB/S continuously Disk space is a considerable problem

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Fully integrated into the GBT Observing System

GUPPI's Advantages

Searching: 800MHz of BW, 4096 chan, and RFI-resistance (from polyphase filterbank) will make GUPPI a “Super Spigot ” that will be unbeatable for searches from 1-5 GHz ( previously the BCPM and Spigot ) High Dynamic-Range Studies: 8-bit sampling, high spectral resolution and Full Stokes will make GUPPI perfect for scintillation studies, HI absorption, Faraday rotation measurements, polarization studies, and singlepulse studies ( previously the Spectral Processor ) Ultra-High Precision Timing: 8-bit sampling, 800MHz of BW, and RFI resistance will allow unprecedented timing precision from 1-3 GHz for millisecond pulsars (i.e. the NANOGrav project and the search for nHz gravitational waves; previously GASP/CGSR2 )

GUPPI-2

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Uses GUPPI to feed a 9 machine cluster of GPU’s via 4 10 GbE ports.

128, 256, or 512 coarse channels will be supported 100 MHz processed per GPU at “reasonable” DM’s.

Only modification to GUPPI is a new output FPGA personality and software to control the nodes

GUPPI-2 experiments

GUPPI-2 Experiments

WUPPI Crab Pulsar Data

Future Projects

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Not funded, but …

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K band Array receiver spectrometer GBT Spectrometer Replacement Transient searches on old telescopes (like fly-eye, with bigger and fewer dishes)

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Lunar Neutrino project Several 43m projects:

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WUPPI Receiver project

K band Feedhorn Array Spectrometer

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7 pixels, dual polarization

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21 ROACH boards, 14 ADC's Needs to be in receiver room 3 GHz bandwidth Cross correlation between polarizations on a single pixel “Zoom” mode for multiple narrow windows in a bandpass Fast dump mode for pulsar use on a few polarizations Normal dump times of 1 ms

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Array Spectrometer design

IF 0 Front-end Electronics IF 1 Front-end Electronics Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware Signal Processors Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware Pixel 3 Pixel 2 Pixel 7 Pixel 6 Pixel 5 Pixel 4 Pixel 1 Pixel 0 Signal Combiner/ Accumulator 10 GB X 2 10 GB X 2 Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware 10 Gb Switch Fibers To Jansky Lab Equipment Room Fibers From GBT 10 Gb Switch Dual 10 Gb Links 32 Core Pipeline Processor Up to 500 MB/sec to disks, sustained Disk Controller Disk Controller To existing GB Network infrastructure 40 TB 40 TB

43m Receiver and Spectrometer

The End

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Summary:

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GUPPI is working well Designs available for distribution in unadorned form now (version 7.1 right now) Plan to submit the FPGA designs, software, and hardware designs to the CASPER wiki