High Resolution Wide Band Direct Conversion Receiver

ABSTRACT: Rapid detection and analysis of signals over a wide frequency band in a dense signal environment continues to be an area requiring further research and development. RBS Technologies, LLC has pursued two high performance architectures for a High Resolution Wideband Direct Conversion Receiver (DCR) as potential candidates for prototype implementation. One of the architectures is based on an array of Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters to process the received spectrum to produce channelized time domain data for signal detection and parameter estimation. A second architecture exploits the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to convert the received spectrum into channelized data in the frequency domain for signal detection and analysis. Both architectures are very amendable to implementation in state of the art Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology. The phase I effort included formulation and design of a sub-sampling technique to facilitate implementation of a DCR with an signal detection bandwidth up to 18 GHz while maintaining a lower ADC sampling frequency consistant with state of the art hardware. The Filter Array architecture has some advantages in signal arbitration and parameter estimation compared to the FFT based architecture. BENEFIT: There is a broad range of applications in all branches of the military for a very wide band, high dynamic range direct conversion receiver for detection and analysis of RF signals. The commercial sector has similar requirements with wireless communications, global positioning systems (GPS), etc. operating in a dense signal environment with inadvertent or intentional interference.