Design and Implementation of a High Speed Bit Error Rate Tester

The Aerospace Corporation Engineering, 2001-02

Liaison(s): Samuel Osofsky ’85
Advisor(s): David Harris
Students(s): Shamik Maitra (TL), William Durley, Jason Imada, Michael Linderman, Aaron Stratton

The Aerospace Corporation seeks to perform Bit Error Rate Testing (BERT) at 10 Gigabits/second over a fiber optic channel. Conventional BERT systems can cost up to $250,000. The current BERT setup at Aerospace has architectural limitations which render the system difficult to use. The Aeropsace Clinic team has redesigned this architecture and developed prototype hardware which eliminates these limitations and allows the current setup to function as a more viable, low-cost BERT solution.