Control System and Visualization of the VLBI Hardware Correlator at SHAO

The VLBI system is comprised of VLBI stations, data preprocessing, correlator, post-correlator, SKD, orbit, location, and so on. The corrlator processor is the core equipment of the VLBI data preprocessing device; we can calculate important parameters such as the delay, delay rate, correlation amplitude, and interferometric phase from the correlator. Now our group has realized a complete software control system and an FPGA core for the hardware correlator on a CPCI board through the playback interface. We have also achieved the visualization of the processing data for convenience and the C/S architecture for controlling the PBI interface. In the future, our group will port the whole system to the Uniboard board--for speed improvement and supporting more modes. Recently, the real-time mode and post-correlation were tested during the CE-3 mission. The result was also checked to make sure our hardware correlator is fine. This paper describes the whole control system and its realization.