The EuFRATE project aims to research, develop and test radiation-hardening methods for telecommunication
payloads deployed for Geostationary-Earth Orbit (GEO) using Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Field Programmable Gate Arrays
(FPGAs). This project is conducted by Argotec Group (Italy) with the collaboration of two partners: Politecnico di Torino
(Italy) and Technische Universit¨at Dresden (Germany). The idea of the project focuses on high-performance telecommunication
algorithms and the design and implementation strategies for connecting an FPGA device into a robust and efficient cluster
of multi-FPGA systems. The radiation-hardening techniques currently under development are addressing both device and
cluster levels, with redundant datapaths on multiple devices, comparing the results and isolating fatal errors. This paper
introduces the current state of the project’s hardware design description, the composition of the FPGA cluster node, the
proposed cluster topology, and the radiation hardening techniques. Intermediate stage experimental results of the FPGA
communication layer performance and fault detection techniques are presented. Finally, a wide summary of the project’s impact
on the scientific community is provided
