Wideband Performance for the Most Difficult RF Environments

Modern RF environments are crowded, contested, and increasingly difficult to accurately analyze. Signals of interest may be weak, agile, or short-duration, while nearby interferers from broadcast, cellular, and other high-power emitters can challenge the performance of conventional receiver architectures.

Epiq Solutions is excited to introduce the NDR684, a four-channel, wideband software defined radio designed for the most demanding RF sensing, survey, and direction finding applications. Built for airborne, vehicle, and fixed-site deployments, the NDR684 combines a high-performance RF front end with 2GHz of total product bandwidth, coherent multi-channel operation, and 100GbE VITA 49 streaming of the digital IF in a compact ruggedized platform.

Wideband Coverage for Demanding Spectrum Missions

The NDR684 provides four high-performance receive channels, each supporting up to 500 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth for 2GHz total product bandwidth, with frequency coverage from 1 MHz to 18 GHz. Each channel uses a super-heterodyne RF signal chain and is designed to reject unwanted signals while preserving high instantaneous dynamic range in band, providing access to the spectrum that matters.

The NDR684 supports both independent channel tuning as well as phase-coherent operation. This enables a range of RF use cases, such as staring at one or multiple RF channel(s) of interest, fast sweeping through the spectrum, and coherent receive modes for direction finding or other multi-channel processing workflows.

Key RF and signal processing highlights include:

• # Receive channels: 4
• Frequency coverage: 1MHz to 18GHz
• Max instantaneous bandwidth per channel: 500MHz
• Total product bandwidth: 2GHz
• Dynamic range: 80+ dB
• Tuning: independent and coherent phase
• Tune time: 100us
• Data format: VITA49 over 100GbE
• Maximum # of selectable DDCs: 48
• Dimensions: 6.45” x 9.45” x 1.9”
• Weight: 5.4lbs

Configurable bandwidth with wideband DDCs

In maximum bandwidth mode the four receive channels each operate with 500MHz of instantaneous bandwidth. The NDR684 also includes user selectable wideband digital down converters. Users can configure bandwidths of 500, 250, 125, 62.5, or 31.25 MHz, with up to 48 DDCs available at varying rates depending on configuration and 100 GbE offload capacity. This gives system designers the ability to select output data rates that align to the desired signal of interest and the RF mission. For example, a system can monitor broad spectral slices for situational awareness while extracting narrower channels for downstream analysis, recording, classification, or exploitation.

Rugged low-SWaP design for real deployments

The NDR684 brings high-performance RF capability into a compact, ruggedized metal enclosure designed for challenging platform environments. At 5.4 lbs and 6.45 x 9.45 x 1.9 inches, it is sized for integration into space-constrained systems while still delivering multi-channel wideband performance up to 18 GHz.

The unit is designed with cold-plate thermal management and ruggedized front-panel connectors. Its architecture supports installation near antenna arrays, helping minimize RF losses before digitization. Once digitized, IQ data can be transported over fiber using the 100 GbE interface.

Next Generation RF Platform

The NDR684 expands Epiq’s NDR platform family with a four-channel, 18 GHz SDR designed for demanding RF environments where wide bandwidth, coherent operation, calibrated performance, and rugged deployment are mission critical.

For teams building next-generation RF sensing, direction finding, counter-UAS, ELINT, COMINT, or distributed spectrum monitoring systems, the NDR684 delivers high-performance spectrum access in a compact, deployable package.

Contact Epiq Solutions to learn more about the NDR684.