Filter with feed-forward AGC

A wideband receiver comprising:

• an A/D converter for digitizing an intermediate frequency signal input thereto and outputting a digital signal;
• a down converter for converting said digital signal to baseband inphase and quadrature (I/Q) signals and low pass filtering said baseband I/Q signals to generate a digitally sampled signal;
• a digital signal processor for developing a processed signal from said digitally sampled signal input thereto, said digital signal processor including multiplying means for multiplying said digitally sampled signal by an amplification factor when said digitally sampled signal is below a threshold value, and said digital signal processor generates an information bit on a sample to sample basis indicative of the processed signal being multiplied by said amplification factor;
• and
• an (I/Q)-to-(logR/.phi.) converter for modifying said processed signal received in response to said information bit generated by said digital signal processor so that the precision for the dynamic range of said processed signal is achieved.

A method for transferring a processed signal having a predetermined dynamic range comprising the steps of:

• (a) converting a digitized signal into a digitally sampled signal having baseband inphase and quadrature (I/O) signal components with a digital signal processor;
• (b) developing the processed signal responsive to said digitally sampled signal received at said step (a) with said digital signal processor by multiplying said digitally sampled signal by an amplification factor when said digitally sampled signal is below a threshold value;
• (c) generating an information bit by said digital signal processor indicative of the processed signal being multiplied by said amplification factor on a sample to sample basis;
• and
• (d) modifying the processed signal in response to said information bit generated at said step (c) by (I/O)-to-(log R/.phi.) conversion so that the precision of the predetermined dynamic range of the processed signal is achieved.