China-Chile Joint Center for Astronomy (CCJCA) Professors Di Li and Wang Zhong together with the Millimeter-Wave Laboratory of the Astronomy Department (DAS) at the University of Chile, which is led by the professors Ricardo Finger and Leonardo Bronfman, joint in a collaborative project with the aim of developing new hardware and techniques for digital signal processing radio astronomy.

For this, the CCJCA acquired a fully equipped workbench, which is being integrated in the Laboratory of Millimeter Wave that includes an FPGA (ROACH-II) card with 2 Analog Digital 5-GSPS, a spectrum analyzer and an analog signal generator among other equipment.

"The signal coming out of the radio receivers has to be processed to calculate the electromagnetic spectrum, we do that with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) digital platform. They work as a miniature supercomputer that allow all this processing in real time" explains Ricardo Finger.

The project will expand the current research developed in the DAS in the field of high-dynamic-range digital broadband spectrometers, along with developments in techniques such as digital sideband separation and digital polarization detection.

With the use of this new technology it is possible to optimally separate the signals of interest from the sideband band which adds noise and unwanted signals to the observations, "The current radio telescopes, based on analog technology, can cancel the sideband contamination by up to 90 %. This new technology allows reducing the sideband noise and unwanted signals in more than 99.99 %", says Ricardo.

For Professor Zhong Wang, this project represents "a new technology with a wide range of promising applications as well as improving the signal processing which is sometimes a limiting factor of modern radio telescopes. As we know, the astronomical research focuses mostly in two areas: new experiments (observations) and innovative technologies. This project is of the latter type."

This initiative will enable joint research between students and postdocs from both countries to develop the next generation of digital signal processors for astronomy. "This is the kind of cooperation we hope to promote in our Center. By bringing together scientists and talented students from Chile and China, we aim to achieve remarkable things. It is also a testament to the quality work undertaken by research institutions such as the DAS", says Zhong .

Currently three Chilean students, two engineering and one PhD, are conducting their thesis work in this field. During 2014 a first student from China is expected to begin working in this promising area, which may have applications not only in astronomy, but also in other fields such as pattern recognition, communications networks and defense