{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T01:32:05Z","timestamp":1760146325702,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"21","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,22]],"date-time":"2024-10-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1729555200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020)","award":["SIFN-01-9999-FN-179491"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SIFN-01-9999-FN-179491"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Applied Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>With the increasing demand for accurate and robust positioning solutions, the use of GNSS antenna arrays has gained significant attention. However, their development and testing are frequently constrained by the inflexibility of traditional hardware platforms, often requiring extensive reconfiguration throughout the development cycle. This paper presents a platform based on a system on chip to develop a highly flexible software-controlled system that is capable of directly sampling up to 16 antenna elements. Multibeam digital beamforming is implemented using the available FPGA resources and the resulting signal is reproduced by the integrated DAC and can be connected to any conventional single antenna GNSS receiver. This paper presents the architecture of the platform, detailing its components and capabilities. Our experimental results demonstrate that the system can phase shift every channel with errors of less than 0.5\u00b0 and can reconfigure 4 simultaneous beams of a 16-antenna array at speeds of 1.2 kHz, and 20 beams at around 400 Hz. The average delay introduced by each channel of the system is around 381 ns with a maximum deviation of 1.05 ns. The delay was also measured for the implementation using 4 beams, which achieves a slightly bigger average delay of 384.6 ns while keeping the variation to 5 to 6 ns. This system is intended to be used as the backbone for the development of antenna arrays and beamforming algorithms. Given its flexibility, it is not necessary to develop new hardware between development iterations or even for different systems, as only the software layer needs to be modified. Consequently, it is possible to expedite the development stage before producing dedicated solutions for industrial applications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/app14219621","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,22]],"date-time":"2024-10-22T04:10:14Z","timestamp":1729570214000},"page":"9621","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Software-Defined Platform for Global Navigation Satellite System Antenna Array Development and Testing"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Diogo","family":"Gomes","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Bosch Car Multimedia Portugal, S.A., Rua Max Grundig, n.\u00b0 35, 4705-820 Braga, Portugal"}]},{"given":"Diogo","family":"Baptista","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Bosch Car Multimedia Portugal, S.A., Rua Max Grundig, n.\u00b0 35, 4705-820 Braga, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2394-2119","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hugo","family":"Dinis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for MicroElectromechanical Systems (CMEMS-Uminho), University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimar\u00e3es, Portugal"},{"name":"LABBELS\u2013Associate Laboratory, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2177-7321","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Paulo M.","family":"Mendes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for MicroElectromechanical Systems (CMEMS-Uminho), University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimar\u00e3es, Portugal"},{"name":"LABBELS\u2013Associate Laboratory, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8960-8498","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"S\u00e9rgio","family":"Lopes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centro Algoritmi\/LASI, University of Minho, 4804-533 Guimar\u00e3es, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, L., Zheng, F., Gong, X., and Jiang, X. 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