An End-to-End Verification of Pulsar Search Signal Chain for Square Kilometre Array Mid Central Signal Processor

An end-to-end simulation has been conducted in order to verify the performance of the pulsar search (PSS) signal chain for the Square Kilometre Array Phase-1 (SKA1) Central Signal Processor (CSP) for the Mid Telescope. This simulation considered combined signal chains in the Mid Correlator Beamformer (CBF) and the Pulsar Search Engine (PSSE). A frequency-domain method has been developed to generate the test vectors containing the simulated pulses with given spin periods, dispersion characteristics and power. The generated test vectors are first processed by the model for the Pulsar Search (PSS) Beamforming for the Mid CBF. The resultant PSS power beams are then processed by the model for Mid.PSSE, which determines the parameters of the pulsars, if any such signals are present. The simulation results confirm that the proposed signal chain for Mid.CBF and Mid.PSSE meets the requirements.