At SRON, research is being done into Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs) for future astrophysical space missions. The KID is a superconducting detector that is extremely sensitive to the weakest infrared sources in the universe. To determine the infrared sources with thousands of KIDs, an extremely large fast fourier transform (FFT) is performed in an FPGA at 160 Hz. To perform this FFT, a matrix transpose is performed in expensive and fast QDR2 memory. The question that needed to be answered is whether it is possible to use cheaper and slower DDR memory for this matrix transpose.It has been proved that it is possible to use DDR memory for the matrix transpose, provided that a number of tricks are performed to be able to compensate for the shortcomings of DDR memory. This is due to it taking a lot of time in DDR to alternate between writing and reading. Two buffers have been implemented with which the data can be saved up so that fewer transitions have to take place.In addition, buffers are used to optimize the matrix transpose. This is done by saving data in buffers to ensure that every write or read action is fully utilized, which would otherwise not have been the case.The assignment was performed in VHDL (hardware description language) using Vivado (IDE). During this internship I gained a deeper knowledge about VHDL, Vivado, DDR memory, FFTs and the MAC sublayer. The graduation internship was completed with a very satisfied client in the form of SRON and with an average 8.5 from the University.

I participated in a number of components of the Honors Program, including additional challenges in the form of research skills, English and a multidisciplinary project. I followed a minor in Spain in Business Economics at the Technical University of Cartagena (Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena) and graduated in June 2019.

Worked as an intern at the R&D department of ICU. I've created algorithms to perform load balancing for charging stations for electric cars and simulated these algorithms in Matlab.The goal: charging stations with multiple charging points for electric cars could theoretically have less maximum power than the total power of the individual charging points added together. This involved looking at what would be required depending on different use cases and then creating rules that the final load balancing program would have adhere to.

Part time job for in the weekends and holidays

Here I've learned to be independent and to study nights on end because of the high study load.