Spectrum Monitoring
& Recording

Real time spectrum monitoring & recording
for seamless data capture of up to 400 Gbps

Interface systems, custom designs, and full integration support available

With an operating frequency from DC to 18 GHz and up to 16 independent channels,
with 1GHz instantaneous bandwidth each,
Cyan is the most powerful solution on the market.
Pair it with one of our storage and playback solutions for up to 100 TB of data storage.

A powerful and long term investment for your spectrum monitoring and recording needs.

A high fidelity, state-of-the-art, end-to-end solution that is ready for use out of the box, this solution enables monitoring and recording across a wide spectrum. The use of multiple independent channels allows for spectrum sweeping while concurrently tuning in to signals of interest. The Cyan SDR and Storage and Playback Solution are rack mount systems that offer seamless data capture in real time with the ability to stream 160 Gbps from the radio to the Storage and Playback Solution.

The Cyan platform paired with the Storage and Playback Solution has remote capabilities and can be accessed through an Ethernet connection to your network, which is ideal for situations and areas where personnel presence is not possible.

 

The flexibility and update mechanisms available in software defined radio make this an investment that can stand the test of time and be upgraded easily and efficiently with new software updates.

Cyan features an on-board Intel Stratix 10 SoC FPGA, high speed digital logic, and precise time keeping to enable high RF and digital bandwidths. The radio performance can also be optimized to meet SNR, noise figure, phase noise, IIP3/OIP3, and more. With up to 16 GHz of instantaneous RF bandwidth, Cyan enables a high POI and can stream 4 x 40 Gbps of data with 100% packet transfer for lossless operation.

Spectrum Monitoring & Recording Block Diagram

Custom Developments

Check out common specification changes through our BYOSDR tool:

Cyan, Chestnut & Crimson TNG can be configured for any system through:

  • Number of RF & DSP channels
  • FPGA resources and digital logic
  • RF performance figures
  • Amount of data storage

Documentation

Applications

  • Spectrum Recording & Monitoring
  • Signal Intercept
  • Monitoring restricted areas (prisons, military facilities, government buildings, airports)
  • Enforcing Spectrum Policy
  • Interference Monitoring

Features

  • Very high RF & digital bandwidth
  • Custom number of channels for operations in various parts of the spectrum
  • COTS solutions
  • Digital backhaul through 4 x 40 Gbps qSFP+ ports
  • Data storage options for any application
  • User adjustable RF parameters

Crimson TNG

  • 4 Rx and 4 Tx RF channels
  • Over 1200 MHz RF bandwidth in total
  • Operating frequency DC to 6 GHz
  • Dual 10 Gbps SFP+ ports
  • Intel Arria V ST FPGA SoC
  • Compact form factor (1U rackmount)
  • Storage & Playback Solution
    configured to work with Chestnut

Chestnut

  • 4 Rx and 4 Tx channels
  • 500 MHz RF bandwidth per channel
  • Operating frequency DC to 9 GHz
  • Dual 100 Gbps qSFP+ ports
  • Intel Arria 10 FPGA SoC
  • Compact form factor (2U rackmount)
  • Storage & Playback Solution
    configured to work with Chestnut

Cyan

  • Up to 16 RF channels
  • Over 1 GHz RF bandwidth per channel
  • Operating frequency DC to 18 GHz
  • Quad 40 Gbps qSFP+ ports
  • Intel Stratix 10 FPGA SoC
  • Compact form factor (3U rackmount)
  • Storage & Playback Solution
    configured to work with Cyan

Integration

As a provider with extensive experience in both the SDR solutions and integration support for all customers, Per Vices makes it easy for customers to include new high performance SDRs into their new and existing systems. We work with you to provide scaled implementation and testing to follow your organizations needs and timeline. We offer: site and equipment planning, hardware deployment, expected performance calculations, customization to meet specific hardware and software interfaces, monitoring and maintenance packages, custom filtering through hardware, and more.

Per Vices has experience designing and developing hardware, firmware, and software that offer:

  • Integration into other devices
  • Network deployments
  • Direct access to FPGA for custom use
  • Changes to RF performance to meet aggressive requirements
Project Overview/Goals

To use our stock Cyan platform combined with a high performance storage solution to capture a large amount of spectrum across multiple chan- nels and store the raw data.

Problem/Challenge

This project had unique challenges that enabled capabilities that are often required for spectrum monitoring and recording applications. The chal- lenge was the capture, transfer, handling, and storage of a very large amount of data at very high data rates.

The requirements associated with this project called for 8 channels capturing at least 480 MHz of data at 16 bits I and 16 bits Q and storing that data for a duration of 10 minutes. The result called for a sustained data capture and transfer rate of 122.88 Gbps of data and the storage of ~9.3 TB of high speed data with lossless performance.

Solution
The final solution consisted of a combination of our Cyan 8 RX 1GSPS SDR along with a custom built storage solution with a combination of high performance FPGA accelerator NICs, NVMe drives, SATA drives, and enough RAM to support the performance requirements. By using our stock Cyan platform, we were able to save the customer a significant amount of time and costs and allowed us to focus on the design and integration of a suitable storage system architecture. The final solution resulted in the two units being delivered to the customer, fully configured for their application, and with an example program to demonstrate performance.
How was this accomplished?

The customer contacted us and we had discussions about the project. We determined that the stock Cyan platform would be a good fit for their proj- ect and also saved them considerable NRE costs and time. Following the discussions concerning the radio resources, we continued the discussions around a suitable host/storage system that would meet all of their needs and we found a solution that met both their technical requirements and budgetary requirements.

During the course of the discussions we had multiple calls and exchanges with the customer to ensure we fully understood both the RF requirements (bandwidth, number of radio chains, operating frequency, etc.) as well as their data storage requirements (how much data needed to be stored, the processing capabilities required, the preferred data format, etc.) to ensure we fully understood the project objectives.

As the RF project objectives were met with our stock Cyan solution, the primary focus was on designing and building a host/storage solution that would be capable of handling the very high data rates. This required multiple discussions with several manufacturers to determine the best path forward. Ultimately the solution included a server system with and FPGA accelerated NIC with onboard RAM, 40G licenses, a series of NVMe drives, and a significant amount of integration effort to ensure the software would fully utilize the hardware capabilities.

Why was Per Vices selected?

The customer was evaluating different options but ultimately chose Per Vices as the preferred designer and manufacturer for this project. This decision was made due to the following major factors:
The performance of the Cyan platform; including the bandwidth, tuning range, number of channels and digital backhaul

  • Availability of COTS stock product that met their radio needs and the demonstrated experience in delivering a system that could meet their data storage and processing needs
  • No additional development costs were required
  • Fast and effective communication between both parties’ engineering teams
  • Reduction in supply chain complexity by having a single vendor provide a complete solution that involved both the radio and data storage/host system

Articles

SDRs: Solving Problems in Spectrum Management

Military Embedded Systems
2021-10-25
The solution: Software-defined radios (SDRs), which are capable of enforcing spectrum policy and removing interference from the allocated frequency bands by incorporating a number of suitable strategies....
(Read more)

Software-Defined Radio: High Performance, Flexible Technology for Spectrum Monitoring

Microwave Journal
2021-06-14
The software-defined radio (SDR) paradigm replaces hardware with flexible software-based components that are inexpensive and easily.....
(Read More)

High Data Rate Considerations for SDR in Spectrum Monitoring and Recording

Embedded Computing Design
2021-04-26
An ever-increasing number of technologies are using unprecedented levels of bandwidth. Despite the increase in captured data, it is generally best to collect as large a portion.....
(Read More)

Advancements in Spectrum Monitoring Leverage Software-Defined Radios

Evaluation Engineering
2021-03-19
Spectrum monitoring has become a critically important task in many sectors to help identify spectrum use and ensure compliance with standards and government regulation.....
(Read More)

For More articles and papers go to our
Media + Resources Page.