ITR/AP: Development of Efficient Real-Time Multi-mode Data Assimilation and Analysis Techniques for the Arecibo and Related Geophysical Radar Systems

A three-year program is proposed involving development of the IT-techniques necessary to make the most efficient bandwidth and science use of the available observation time at Arecibo Observatory (AO) by flexibly accelerating the data processing. The proposed IT-approach will be tested via two high-impact science test/demonstration cases to be conducted at AO. The first involves simultaneous high-range/time resolution dual-beam incoherent scatter radar (ISR) observations of the 50-600 km ionosphere and a simultaneous search-using the same data stream-for heliocentric orbital objects above the atmosphere. The second will search the data-stream for meteors and completely reduce the highly complex meteor data to geophysical parameters in real-time while also processing the same data-stream for ionosphere D-region spectra. These science goals will be pursued while processing for interference and satellite-returns, providing appropriate real-time display, and archiving both original and processed data. The proposed approach will allow full use of off-the-shelf technological advancements such ad the wide-bandwidth/large-dynamic-range IF-sampling receivers developed for cell-phone base-stations and cheap but powerful general-purpose desktop/single-board computers. This hardware plus proposed algorithm development will permit assimilation of the real-time data at the full rate thus flexibly enabling optimal interference processing, real-time data display, and multi-mode parallel-outcome scientific processing. The proposed development of this flexible data-processing environment would not only prove useful to the geophysical radar community but would also provide the same environment for wide-bandwidth/multi-frequency radio astronomy observations at AO. This approach would also broadly-impact other geophysical radar and radio astronomy facilities by enabling simple adoption of this proposed low-cost general-purpose data processing/interpretations environment.