Scientists Develop Oversampled Channelization Technology for Radio Astronomy Wideband Digital Signal

A team of researchers from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a new oversampled channelization technology for radio astronomy wideband digital signal.

The study, published in the journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, was led by Dr. Zhang Meng and Dr. Zhang Hailong.

Channelization is a process that decomposes a wideband signal into several adjacent sub-bands. This allows the signal to be processed separately, which can improve the efficiency of processing.

The oversampled channelization technology developed by the XAO researchers uses a 2× oversampled polyphase filter bank. This means that the signal is sampled at twice the Nyquist rate, which helps to reduce the problems of signal attenuation, spectral leakage, and aliasing.

The researchers tested their technology on the 400MHz baseband data of J0437-4715, a millisecond pulsar. They compared the pulse profile obtained by direct processing of the original baseband data with the pulse profile obtained after the channelization and recombination. The results showed that the oversampled channelization algorithm produced a pulse profile with the same phase and amplitude information as the original data.

The researchers believe that their technology can be used to improve the quality of radio astronomical observation data. They are currently working on developing a prototype system for testing in real-world conditions.

Journal Information: Meng Zhang et al, Research on Channelization Techniques of Radio Astronomical Wideband Signal with Oversampled Polyphase Filter Banks, Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (2023). DOI: 10.1088/1674-4527/acd73b