Next Generation Software Based Instruments for Pulsar Astronomy

Abstract

High time resolution studies of pulsars require specialized instrumentation to counter the degradation in the quality and time resolution of their radio signals due to dispersion in the inter-stellar medium. The availability of cheap computer hardware in recent years has provided a new alternative to dedicated hardware based solutions used in the past for this purpose. In this paper, a comparison of old and modern instrumentation to obtain high time resolution data is presented and future trends in pulsar instrumentation are discussed. The salient features of Coherent On-line baseband receiver for astronomy (COBRA), a new digital receiver for pulsar observations at Jodrell Bank Observatory, are listed followed by a brief description of our benchmark code used for designing such systems.