Radio frequency receiver
AssigneeBAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration Inc.
InventorRishi Rambaran
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed is a radio frequency receiver with real-time dynamic gain control that uses a feed-forward structure to enable the short response times that are required by IFF systems. In the radio frequency receiver, a signal that is received by an antenna is split by a splitter, and during processing of one branch of the split by a receiver chain, the other branch is subjected concurrently to power detection, to thereby set the attenuation of a dynamic gain amplifier prior to the processed radio frequency signal arriving at the attenuator, thereby conditioning the radio frequency signal to match the dynamic range of a subsequent analog device, such as an ADC, protecting the ADC and optimizing performance thereof, while eliminating the time that would be required by a feedback-based dynamic gain control system.
Claims14
A radio frequency (RF) receiver, comprising:
- a splitter configured to receive an RF signal and to split said signal into a first split RF signal and a second split RF signal;
- a detector, in operative communication with the splitter, configured to receive the second split RF signal, to detect a power level of the second split RF signal, and to output a detector signal;
- a receiver chain, in operative communication with the splitter, configured to receive the first split RF signal and to perform an RF process on the first split RF signal;
- a dynamic gain amplifier, in operative communication with the detector and with the receiver chain, configured to receive, and to attenuate or amplify, in accordance with the detector signal from the detector, the processed first split RF signal;
- and
- an analog device, in operative communication with the dynamic gain amplifier, configured to receive, and to further process, the processed first split RF signal that has been attenuated or amplified by the dynamic gain amplifier, wherein:
- the detector and the dynamic gain amplifier are configured jointly such that a time required for the detection of the power level of the second split RF signal and for setting and stabilization of the gain of the dynamic gain amplifier in response to the detector signal is shorter than the propagation time of the first split RF signal through the receiver chain.
A radio frequency (RF) receiving method, comprising:
- receiving an RF signal and splitting the RF signal into a first split RF signal and a second split RF signal;
- detecting a power level of the second split RF signal and outputting a detector signal based thereon;
- receiving the first split RF signal and performing an RF process thereon;
- setting a gain of a variable amplifier based on the detector signal;
- receiving, and attenuating or amplifying in accordance with the detector signal, the processed first split RF signal;
- and
- receiving, and further processing, the processed first split RF signal that has been attenuated by the dynamic gain amplifier, wherein:
- the detecting the power level of the second split RF signal and setting up the attenuation or amplification are performed such that a time required for the detection of the power level of the second split RF signal and for setting and stabilizing the gain of the dynamic gain amplifier in response to the detector signal is shorter than a time for receiving the first split RF signal and performing the RF process thereon.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.