Deathstar: Loran C Receiver
Team members:
- Matt Anderson
- Chris Birschback
- Christy Corner
- Matt Hayman
- Erin Mowbray
Our group will design a receiver that will be able to capture and decode the Loran-C signal maintained by the United States Coast Guard. Our system will consist of three main parts: the antenna/receiver, processing unit and personal computer.
The antenna/receiver will consist of a loop antenna with a Butterworth filter to capture the fundamental signal received by the antenna. This segment of the project serves the main purpose of capturing the Loran-C signal with minimal noise and preparing it for processing.
The processing unit will consist of an analog-to-digital converter, a 68K processor, memory, FPGA, LCD and input & output channels. After the signal has been converted to a digital signal, the processor will store it in memory. The FPGA uses the previously stored signals, and performs subtraction in order to determine the Loran Time Delays. The FPGA also has the interrupt controller that determines when the analog-to-digital controller sends the data to memory. The calculated Loran Time Delay will then be sent to the LCD as well as the PC (via serial port) for display and further processing. The PC will perform intensive calculations and convert the Loran Time Delays into latitude and longitude coordinates. These coordinates will then be displayed on the PC.