Wideband digital spectrometer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9252825-B2
Application number	US-201514697308-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 27, 2015
Priority date	May 23, 2007
Publication date	Feb 2, 2016
Grant date	Feb 2, 2016

Abstract

A processor, comprising a first data input configured to receive a stream of samples of a first signal having a spectral space, the stream having a data rate of at least 4 GHz; a second data input configured to receive a stream of samples of a second signal; a multitap correlator, configured to receive the first stream of samples and the second stream of samples, and producing at least one correlation output for each respective sequential sample of the first signal received; and a programmable control configured to alter a relationship of the stream of samples of the first signal and the stream of samples of the second signal, to thereby select, under program control, an alterable correlation output.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A signal processing system, comprising:
(a) a signal processor, comprising a digital correlator, configured to receive a time-continuous signal within a band spanning a range of frequencies, and to generate a set of digital spectral signal parameters representing the discrete-time signal; and
(b) a transform processor configured to selectively transform the received time-continuous signal in dependence on the set of digital spectral signal parameters, the transformed time-continuous signal being substantially without intermodulation distortion products of the received time-continuous signal within the band spanning the range of frequencies.

2. The signal processing system according to claim 1 , wherein the signal processor comprises a superconducting analog to digital modulator.

3. The signal processing system according to claim 1 , wherein the signal processor comprises a plurality of superconducting digital logic devices.

4. The signal processing system according to claim 1 , wherein the digital correlator comprises a digital cross correlator and the signal processor further comprises a processor for computing a signal transform based on a cross correlation of the discrete time signal.

5. The signal processing system according to claim 4 , wherein the signal transform comprises a frequency domain transform, and wherein the transform processor transforms the time-continuous signal in dependence on at least one frequency transform domain characteristic of the time-continuous signal.

6. The signal processing system according to claim 5 , wherein the transform processor comprises a frequency selective filter, and wherein transform characteristics of the frequency selective filter are determined based on frequency components of the time-continuous signal.

7. The signal processing system according to claim 1 , wherein the transform processor comprises at least one superconducting circuit.

8. A spectrometer, comprising:
an analog filter having a controllable linear transfer function across a frequency band, substantially without introducing nonlinear distortion within the frequency band;
a signal digitizer, having a sampling rate of at least twice a highest frequency of the radio frequency band, configured to digitize an output of the analog filter;
a filter control, comprising a digital correlator, configured to control the controllable linear transfer function of the analog filter in dependence on at a set of digitally-computed spectral characteristics of the output of the analog filter.

9. The spectrometer according to claim 8 , wherein the highest frequency of the radio frequency band comprises a frequency of at least 500 MHz.

10. The spectrometer according to claim 8 , wherein the signal digitizer digitizes the output of the analog filter at a rate of at least 1 GHz.

11. The spectrometer according to claim 10 , wherein the filter control comprises a plurality of superconducting digital logic devices.

12. The spectrometer according to claim 11 , wherein the digital correlator comprises a digital cross correlator.

13. A spectrometer method, comprising:
receiving a radio frequency analog signal having at least one radio frequency component;
attenuating the at least one radio frequency component with a controllable analog filter having a controllable transfer function;
sampling the attenuated at least one radio frequency component with a signal digitizer, at a sampling rate of at least twice a maximum frequency of the at least one radio frequency component, to produce a digitized signal substantially without a broadened spectrum of the at least one radio frequency component; and
processing the digitized signal to compute a transfer function of the controllable analog filter.

14. The spectrometer method according to claim 13 , further comprising computing spectral characteristics of the digitized signal.

15. The spectrometer method according to claim 13 , wherein the radio frequency signal comprises a component having a frequency of at least 500 MHz.

16. The spectrometer method according to claim 13 , wherein the signal digitizer generates the digitized signal having a sample rate of at least 1 GHz.

17. The spectrometer method according to claim 16 , wherein the processing the digitized signal comprises digitally calculating a cross correlation of the digitized signal.

18. The spectrometer method according to claim 13 , wherein the signal digitizer comprises at least one superconducting circuit component.

19. The spectrometer method according to claim 13 , wherein the controllable analog filter comprises a superconductor circuit component.

20. The spectrometer method according to claim 13 , further comprising generating an output representing a zoom having a limited full span range over a frequency band of interest within the radio frequency analog signal.

Assignees

• Hypres Inc

Inventors

• Gupta Deepnarayan

Classifications

• H04B1/123 Primary

  using adaptive balancing or compensation means (adaptive filter circuits and algorithms H03H) · CPC title

• H04B1/109 Primary

  by improving strong signal performance of the receiver when strong unwanted signals are present at the receiver input · CPC title

• H04B1/38

  Transceivers, i.e. devices in which transmitter and receiver form a structural unit and in which at least one part is used for functions of transmitting and receiving · CPC title

• H04B1/0028

  wherein the AD/DA conversion occurs at baseband stage · CPC title