Thong Thai completed his BASc, Computer Engineering and finished his MSc under Dr. Regina Lee's supervision in 2014. He immediately started his PhD candidacy (Earth and Space Science) in a related topic at York University and he has made significant progress since then. Thong excels in several engineering research skills (design, prototyping and testing), often suggests innovative ideas and consistently provides practical solutions to complex and challenging technical problems. Since 2014, Thong has worked with Aflare Systems in Brampton in developing FPGA-based software defined radio. Recently, he has been also working with Honeywell/COM DEV in developing FPGA-based reconfigurable, flexible payload electronics.
Relevance to TEPS
The proposed research project is to design and demonstrate an improved payload processing hardware. By developing a flexible platform for space payloads, different frontend payload electronics to be used with a common data acquisition and processing backend. In reusing a common backend, the time invested in the design of the payload can be spent on the science instrument itself and less time spent on the supporting hardware by relying on existing software and designs. To demonstrate the practical applications for this flexible processing hardware, two designs are planned, sensor fusion through a combination of spectrometer frontend and optical imager connected to a single processing unit, and a secondly, a payload integrated with a Software Defined Radio (SDR) communications backend to allow for the transfer of processed data using a single processing unit.
