Development and Demonstration of a Microwave Frequency Synthesizer Design with Improved Performance and Low Cost

The proposed technique, Direct RF Generation, has been validated in architectures providing extremely efficient implementation of high performance synthesizers, with very fast turning speeds, high frequency accuracies, low phase noise and pulse-to-pulse coherence. The proposed system will be competitive with the best laboratory equipment, even that most recently available. To meet other, less stringent Air Force requirements, the direct RF generation architecture could be tailored to provide a broad range of tuning bandwidths, settling times, frequency accuracies and spectral purities. By using direct microwave RF generation controlled by a fast, very broadband Phase-Lock Loop (PLL), the system avoids the hardware intensive filtering techniques necessary in traditional upconversion and multiplication schemes and will employ readily available commercial hardware, providing extremely attractive size and cost efficiencies. The proposed system also avoids the phase noise problems of DDS's. The proposed Phase I SBIR program will present the results of laboratory breadboard experimentation; will provide a specific high performance, affordable design for Phase II development and demonstration, with performance, size and production cost estimates; and will offer a proposed Phase II SBIR hardware development and demonstration program plan.