Tuesday, August 02, 2005

August 2, 2005

I have managed to get the IPS-E0 image (the basic IPS operating system) into the bootloader for the IHU-3 (integrated housekeeping unit for Phase 3E and Eagle). It will be easily loaded via the bootloader by just striking the E key. This enables us to upload, using the bootloader, any type of IO, interrupt handler, etc. that we wish to upload. This should greatly speed the development process for the flight code for Phase 3E.

I have added some CAN controller initialization code to the bootstrap IPS routine as well as an asynchronous communications mechanism. It will use the flag facility already built into IPS to send and receive 512 byte blocks but it will be almost completely limited to printable ascii characters.

On the SDR-1000 front, I modified some of the settings for the "microphone leveler". It appears that we have too much early attack which appears to limit the average power too much. It may be that we never wish to allow for negative gain at this stage.

It is clear that serious investigation of this process is required. I only wish I could force myself to be interested in doing it. Sigh.

The SDR-1000 official numbers are in. 99 dB IMD-DR and +27 dBm IP3 on the low bands at 2 Khz with the preamp in medium setting (giving <-120 dBm MDS). OUTSTANDING.

Bob