Digital Equipment Engineer for RF Payloads

Digital Equipment Engineer for RF Payloads

Akkodis

Noordwijk, Netherlands

Specific tasks to be performed

Contribution to the engineering work in the field of Digital equipment for RF payloads in support to ESA Projects, which includes:

• Providing expertise to support Projects (and Studies) throughout all project phases;
• Performing and documenting relevant analyses;
• Supporting the implementation of industrial project activities;
• Supporting and performing “in-house” design and trade-offs to support project specific technology developments;
• Supporting the implementation of industrial project activities;
• Carrying out computer simulations at system/subsystem level for the assessment of end-to-end Digital Equipment performance;
• Providing hands-on Digital Equipment modelling and testing support to projects, which will require proper coordination with the corresponding Laboratory Service;
• Supporting and contributing to meetings and reviews.

Identification, implementation, validation, and operation of the relevant section tools, which includes:

• Providing expertise related to the software, hardware and data related tools;
• Participating in the development, validation, deployment and maintenance of relevant internal software tools and databases;
• Liaising with Technical Responsible for the proper configuration of software/hardware either developed in the service itself or originating from external activities;
• Operating the tools for the purpose of supporting Projects or ESA R&D activities.

Support to Staff in the implementation of R&D activities in the technical domain. This includes:

• Providing technical inputs to the definition of technology roadmaps and contributing to relevant reviews and meetings;
• Monitoring applicable scientific and technological trends and maintaining state of-the-art expertise in Digital equipment for RF Payloads;
• Providing inputs to documentation and meetings/reviews, conducting relevant technical analyses;
• Contribute to the definition of technical requirements and statements of work for the tasks to be performed by industry from early conceptual studies to full hardware development;
• Reviewing output from industry/academia and providing inputs to the ESA Technical Officer. This includes – when relevant – the conduction of software or of hardware tests in a Divisional laboratory, which will require proper coordination with the corresponding Laboratory Service.

Supporting the ESA Technical representative in meeting with industry/academia:

• When required, organizing ad hoc meetings with industry/academia and reporting on their outcome to the ESA Technical representative;
• Architectural definition, design, development, characterisation and performance evaluation of RF Payloads/Instruments Control, Data and (Digital) Signal Processing Units (e.g. telecom digital transparent and regenerative processors, digital signal generation and signal processing units, etc.);
• Design, development and performance evaluation and characterisation of RF Payload Data and Signal Processing techniques, including:
  • Payload Signal and Data Processing, including advanced techniques (e.g. digital beamforming, Machine Learning/Al techniques, etc.) supporting instrument operation and operative modes;
  • Payload Data Compression;
  • Payload Data Encryption;
  • RF Payloads/Instruments related ASICs and Devices (e.g. FPGA, DSP) specification/ validation, in close cooperation with other divisions/sections of the Agency.

Profile

To successfully perform the above mentioned tasks, the following background/experience is required:

• University Master’s degree in Telecommunications, Electronics or Computer Science Engineering combined with several years of experience;
• Very good knowledge of:
  • Digital Processing Systems, including Digital processing architectures for RF systems (including “Software Defined Radio”), main functional blocks and internal/external interfaces (including RF), together with associated technologies and components;
  • Digital Processing Technologies and Input/Output Interfaces, including High-speed data conversion (A/D and D/A) techniques and technology; digital processing devices such as DSPs, FPGAs, CPUs, Digital input/output interfaces and technologies, networks and protocols;
  • Signal and Data Processing Algorithms and Techniques, including high-speed digital signal processing;
  • Digital System Modelling, Simulation and Programming, software development languages.
• Experience on Design and development of digital processing architectures for RF systems, and definition of key parameters and budgets in the context of different RF system application domains (e.g. RF payloads for Earth Observation, Telecom, Navigation or other relevant ones), is considered an asset.