REMOTE SENSING

PMCC provides ASICs and board level solutions to address the challenges of space-based remote sensing systems. These challenges include requirements for high operation frequencies, low power consumption, low system volume and reasonable cost. To achieve optimal performance for the particular application, our solutions can be customized to meet specific requirements such as front-end gain/linearity, ADC/DAC resolution and speed, DSP functionality. The ultimate result is a customized solution that offers improved accuracy and sensitivity of the radiometer or spectrometer instruments. These instruments are essential for more accurate exploration of the solar system and cosmos as well as characterization of the Earth’s atmosphere, its soil humidity, temperature, water vapor, pollutants and the ozone layer that are essential for exploration of climate change. Another application area includes surveillance satellites used for reconnaissance, communication, navigation, and early warning. Additional area of application includes Earth based radio telescopes used for radio astronomy.

The main advantages of using PMCC’s ASICs in satellite-based remote sensing radiometers, spectrometers and SARs are as follows:

• High precision is critical for obtaining accurate measurements of various parameters such as temperature, humidity, and atmospheric gases – essential for weather forecasting, climate studies and various surveillance and security applications referenced above.
• High-speed signal conversion rates are necessary for bandwidth increase, real-time data acquisition and processing in Earth or satellite-based instruments. This enables researchers to process wide bandwidth signals and obtain a continuous stream of data, which can be analyzed and processed quickly to produce accurate results.
• Designed targeting a particular application based on client needs, such as high resolution, low noise, and high-speed.
• Low size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) addressing the needs of space-based applications to reduce requirements for the power source, reduce stress on the space launch vehicle and increase the instrument’s reliability.
• Easy to interoperate with other components in the system, leading to a more compact and efficient design for space applications where size and weight constraints are critical. It simplifies the design and manufacturing process, as well as the testing and calibration of the system.

Leading space research organizations, satellite and aircraft manufacturers and specialized spectrometer and radiometer developers have sought the PMCC’s family of spectrometer ASIC based products. Our ASICs greatly reduce the complexity and support low SWaP-C for developed systems. These advantages offer increased reliability and performance parameters such as signal to noise ratios, while covering a wide spectrum of signals required for a variety of space and Earth observation applications.

For more information see products here and IP Portfolio here.