A Low SWAP High Precision Spectrum Monitoring System with Calibrated Antennas

This proposal presents a low SWAP spectrum monitoring system covering from 100MHz to 14GHz. The system sensitivity is -120dBm with 1kHz bandwidth. It has a SWAP of 10cm12cm1.5cm, 2lB, and less than 2.8W. It is much smaller than any available USB spectrum analyzer plus a small PC. The system divides the covered frequency band (100MHz ~ 14GHz) into three sub-bands (sub-band I - 100 ~ 800MHz, sub-band II - 0.8 ~ 7GHz, sub-band - III 7 ~ 14GHz) and each sub-band is covered using a set of antennas (three same antennas for DOA estimation) and the following receivers. The two higher frequency sub-band antenna sets are fixed relatively to each other (each set will be on one PCB board) and lower frequency sub-band antennas are installed on ScanEagle wings and fuselage (there may be some errors due to installation and wing shape change in flying, but it is tolerated for the relative large wavelength). The micro-controller will select which sub-band will work and what frequency signal will be collected. At any time, the system only works on one sub-band, and the other two are turned off to save power. The DOA estimation capability is for precise EM signal power measurement.