Scalable modular hardware platform for FPGA based industrial radar flowmeters

Modern industrial process instrumentation systems like radar based flow meters demand for scalable modular hardware platforms to meet the requirements for integration in heterogeneous Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Recent advances in System on Chip (SoC) technology allow integration of multichannel frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar sensors with real-time signal processing capabilities and flexible reconfigurable communication interfaces in low-cost embedded systems. In this contribution a hardware platform for a three channel 80GHz FMCW correlation radar sensor for volume fraction and flow velocity measurements in industrial environments is presented. The system is based on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 SoC running Linux with a scalable modular radar frontend interface and a reconfigurable signal processing integrated in the programmable logic (PL). Additionally, an overview of possible industrial communication interfaces that can easily be integrated by the use of available third party IP cores is given.