ESA Athena WFI Onboard Electronics - Distributed Control and Data Processing
Markus Plattner1, Sabine Ott1, Sebastian Albrecht1, Jintin Tran1, Christopher Mandla1, Jan-Christoph Tenzer2, Thomas Schanz2, Samuel Pliego2, Denis Tcherniak3, Manfred Steller4, Harald Jeszensky4, Roland Ottensamer5, Konrad Skup6, Chris Thomas7 and Julian Thornhill7
1Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics Garching, Germany
2Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics - University of Tübingen Tübingen, Germany
3Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics - Technical University of Denmack Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
4Space Research Intitute - Austrian Academy of Sciences Graz, Austria
5Department of Astrophysics - University of Vienna Vienna, Austria
6Space Research Centre - Polish Academy of Science Warsaw, Poland
7Physics and Astronomy – University of Leic
ABSTRACT
Within this paper, we describe architecture and functionality of the Wide Field Imager (WFI) control and data processing electronics. WFI is one of two scientific instruments of the next European X-ray observatory ATHENA whose development started five years ago. A conceptual design, development models and a number of technology development activities have been performed and results will be shown.
Keywords: Athena, WFI, FPGA, Onboard Processing, Instrument Control Unit.
