Implementing a Real - Time Beamformer on an FPGA Platform

Most real-world communication systems have a mix of processing elements. For example, application programs, human/machine interface management, and higher networking protocol stack processing are best implemented on a general-purpose processor. But for high-rate, algorithmically complex data processing – often with hard realtime deadlines – hardware resources like FPGAs are a better match. The interface between the two depends on the circumstance; the FPGA can be a pre-processor, coprocessor, post-processor, or some combination thereof. The trick is to get these heterogeneous systems to interoperate in an elegant fashion.