ARM and FPGA based electrical signal source for swing scanning infrared earth sensor

Special test facility is of great importance for swing scanning infrared earth sensor (SSIRES) to validate its function and precision. The traditional optical test facility has disadvantages of fixed structure and low test precision and efficiency. Another kind of test facility is based on pure electrical instruments, and the modern industrial controlled computer and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) based electrical signal source is the key component part, but this kind of electrical signal is bulky and costly. This paper presents a novel hardware design approach for electrical signal source. The adoption of Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) and FPGA greatly increases flexibility of the system and decreases power consumption and cost. Tasks taken by ARM and FPGA are also properly divided. ARM is mainly used for earth wave algorithm and human-computer interaction. FPGA is mainly used for interface timing conversion. The use of FPGA releases ARM from tedious tasks and simplifies design of the peripheral circuits of ARM. The function modules implemented in ARM and FPGA are introduced in detail. Simulation and experiment results demonstrate that the new hardware design approach for electrical signal source is valid.