We are designing a payload capable of receiving RF-signals in the GNSS-band, either emmitted from the Earth as harmful jamming/spoofing signals, or reflected "proper" GNSS-signals of the Earth. The latter case is called GNSS reflectometry (GNSS-R). Both usecases are useful for maritime surveillance. GNSS-R is based on detecting and correlating reflected GNSS signals with the original signals in a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite or correlating the reflected signals with GNSS code replicas. 

This is a new technology that is promising for detecting ships that does not want to be found – so called dark ships. The localization of the reflected signal can be assumed calculated by the geometry of the GNSS satellite and the receiving satellite. In addition, we investigate how a payload in an LEO satellite can detect and monitor malicious GNSS radio frequency interference (RFI) events – jamming and spoofing. 

For these two purposes, we need a payload to record and process the received signals, direct and reflected. The current intended payload platform for the GNSS-R payload is based on a Xilinx RFSoC, where we have a RFSoC development board for prototyping. The purpose of this task is to move from a lab prototype board closer to a flight ready prototype.

Project Description

The project will build on previous work by NTNU students, and follow up the payload design. The student will contribute to the development of the RF-payload, mostly on the digital side, by perfoming one or several tasks: 

• Setting up a re-configurable build-system for the RF-SoC (in Vivado, Yocto and/or PetaLinux configuration)
• Developing a re-configurable processing pipeline architecture where the needed processing steps can be run, either on the processor or as hardware accelerated modules in the FPGA. 
• Implementing hardware acceleration modules can be a task (for the interested student)
• Defining a system for data handling on-board
• Designing the user interface for command and control

Fig. 1: GNSS-RFI detection from space. By Magnhild Eeg.

Impact
Space technology plays a crucial role in achieving various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN. A GNSS-RFI-payload has the potential to allows us to detect and monitor water vessels at sea and localize GNSS inference sources originating from sea or land. This project target

• SDG9 Industry, innovation, and infrastructure. The outcomes have an innovative and commercial potential for industry and can contribute both to new space-based infrastructure and protection of existing critical infrastructure beyond GNSS.

• SDG16 Peace, justice and strong institutions. Maritime surveillance and GNSS interference monitoring are both relevant for this.

Who We Are Looking For

We are seeking a highly motivated final year student in Cybernetics, Electronics, or a related field with an interest either one or several of the topics

Keen interest in electronics and embedded systems
Knowledge and a desire to work with space hardware and software, developing low-level electronics 
Skills in Linux and C is required, knowledge about FPGAs is desired but not a requirement. 
Experience from embedded systems, real-time systems and computer architecture is a plus.

How we work
The student will be part of the NTNU SmallSat lab, a lab which typically hosts 10-20 master's student per semester. At the NTNU SmallSat Lab we encourage collaboration and try to get our group to help each other. To facilitate this, we as well as arrange common lunches and workshops where the students and supervisors can learn from each other. I some project we also implement a development process.

Supervisor(s)
For further questions please contact:

• Torleiv H. Bryne (main supervisor, NTNU/ITK), Roger Birkeland (co-supervisor, NTNU/IES),
• Roger Birkeland (main supervisor, NTNU/IES).