RFSoC receiver calibration system for 21-cm global spectrum experiments from space: the CosmoCube case

ABSTRACT

The CosmoCube project plans to deploy a global 21-cm spectrometer with 10–100 MHz observation band in a lunar orbit. The farside part of such an orbit, i.e. the part of orbit behind the Moon, offers an ideal site for accurately measuring the 21-cm signal from the dark ages, cosmic dawn, and epoch of reionization, as the effects of the Earth’s ionosphere, artificial radio frequency interference, and complex terrain and soil are all avoided. Given the limitations of a satellite platform, we propose a receiver calibration system design based on a radio frequency system-on-chip, consisting of a vector network analyser (VNA) subsystem, and a source switching subsystem. We introduce the measurement principle of the VNA, and discuss the effect of quantization error. The accuracy, stability, and trajectory noise of the VNA are tested in laboratory experiments. We also present the design of the source-switching subsystem, generating mock data sets, showing that the imperfect return loss, insertion loss, and isolation of surface-mounted microwave switches have a minimal effect on the sky foreground fitting residuals, which are within ±10 mK under optimal fitting condition. When all possible measurement errors in reflection coefficients and physical temperatures are taken into account, the foreground fitting residuals for the 50–90 MHz part of the spectrum remain around ±20 mK.