Quick Start

Running dspsr

The dspsr command-line program processes baseband or filterbank data into folded pulse profiles:

# Basic folding with 1024 phase bins
dspsr -b 1024 observation.dada

# Form a 256-channel convolving filterbank before folding
dspsr -F 256:D observation.dada

Key concepts

Data containers:

dsp::TimeSeries : Floating-point representation of the signal, organized by time, frequency, and polarization.

dsp::BitSeries : N-bit digitized data before unpacking into a TimeSeries.

Operations:

All signal processing steps inherit from dsp::Operation:

  • dsp::Unpack – convert digitized data to floating point

  • dsp::Convolution – coherent dedispersion via convolution

  • dsp::Filterbank – filterbank channelization

  • dsp::Fold – fold data at the pulsar period

  • dsp::Detection – form Stokes parameters or detected power

  • dsp::PScrunch / dsp::TScrunch / dsp::FScrunch – integrate over polarization, time, or frequency

File loading:

dsp::File and its subclasses handle format-specific I/O. The dsp::File::create factory auto-detects the file format.