ASTRO™ Reduces Time-to-Deployment for Digital RF Systems
At Slipstream Design, we control the whole signal chain, from RF to Digital, and optimise it. ASTRO™ is a proven agile, multimodal radio processor for complex waveform generation, enabling agile situational awareness for both radar and comms in congested environments with real customers.
Using ASTRO as a Foundational Platform vs Building a Radar Processor from Scratch
| Challenge | Traditional Approach | ASTRO-Based Approach |
|---|---|---|
| RF digitalisation | Custom development | Available immediately |
| Beamforming framework | Extensive effort | Accelerated |
| Testing | New infrastructure | Existing platform |
| Time to first demonstration | Months or years | Significantly reduced |
Replacing large portions of bespoke development with proven, configurable building blocks.
What is ASTRO™ ?
ASTRO™ is a configurable RFSoC-based radar and communications processing platform designed to reduce the time, cost and technical risk of developing new advanced Digital & RF systems including digital beamforming, radar processing, SIGINT and adaptive communications applications.
How ASTRO™ Reduces Development Risk
Developing modern RF and radar systems involves significant technical risk across hardware, signal processing, and system integration. ASTRO™ reduces this risk by providing a validated RFSoC-based foundation that replaces large portions of bespoke development with proven, configurable building blocks.
What this means in practice
ASTRO™ allows engineering teams to move from system construction to system optimisation, reducing early-stage development uncertainty and enabling faster validation of radar and RF architectures.
Digital Beamforming with ASTRO™
Digital beamforming enables precise electronic steering and shaping of radar or communication beams through digital signal processing. ASTRO™ provides a practical RFSoC-based platform for implementing, testing, and iterating beamforming architectures in real systems.
What is digital beamforming?
Digital beamforming is a signal processing technique used in antenna arrays where incoming or outgoing signals are digitised and processed in software or FPGA logic to control the direction, shape, and characteristics of radio frequency beams.
Each antenna element is sampled individually. Phase and amplitude are digitally controlled. Multiple beams can be formed simultaneously.
Why does digital beamforming matter?
Here are the key outcomes of implementing digital beamforming for signal intelligence, EW and satellite communications:
- Enables multi-target tracking and multi-beam operations
- Improves spatial resolution and interference rejection
- Supports adaptive and reconfigurable radar systems
- Essential for modern phased array systems
How ASTRO™ supports digital beamforming
While digital beamforming is well understood in theory, implementing it in real-time RF systems requires tight integration between RF front-end design, high-speed data conversion, and FPGA-based signal processing.
ASTRO™ provides a structured platform that reduces the gap between theoretical beamforming models and deployable hardware systems.
ASTRO™ provides a ready-to-configure RFSoC-based platform designed to accelerate the implementation of digital beamforming systems.
RF digitisation at the antenna edge
- Direct RF sampling using integrated RFSoC architecture
- Reduced need for external digitisation stages
Real-time signal processing pipeline
- FPGA-based processing for beamforming
- Support for high-throughput, low latency architectures
Multi-domain applications
- Radar systems
- Communication systems
- Electronic surveillance and sensing
- Satellite communication systems
Discover the core form factors of the ASTRO Ecosystem™
