Efficient time-frequency and bi-frequency signal processing on a reconfigurable computer

Reconfigurable computers allow applications developers to tailor both the software and the hardware of the computer for efficient execution of computationally intensive algorithms. This increases the speed at which the algorithms are executed, making computationally intensive algorithms more useful for real-time and near real-time applications in electronic intelligence (ELINT) applications. This paper presents a study on the use, accuracy, and efficiency of the SRC-6 reconfigurable computer to perform both time-frequency and bi-frequency signal processing. To test the performance, continuous waveform (CW) radar signal modulations are examined using the Choi-Williams distribution (CWD) to calculate the time-frequency characteristics of a signal. Also, the FFT accumulation method (FAM) is used to calculate the cyclostationary bi-frequency characteristics of a signal.