Digital polarimetric system for generating polarization agile signals

An apparatus for generating a polarization agile signal, comprising:

• an analog-to-digital converter configured to digitally sample an input signal to produce a digital input signal;
• a processor configured to generate a time-stretched signal by representing each of a number of samples of the digital input signal as a plurality of time-stretched samples, said processor generating digital time-stretched signal components of the polarization agile signal from the time-stretched signal and polarization data, and time compressing the digital time-stretched signal components to produce digital signal components of the polarization agile signal;
• and
• a digital-to-analog converter device configured to receive the digital signal components and generate corresponding analog signal components of the polarization agile signal.

An apparatus for generating a polarization agile signal, comprising:

• means for time stretching a digital input signal by representing each of a number of samples of the digital input signal as a plurality of time-stretched samples;
• means for generating digital time-stretched signal components of the polarization agile signal from the time-stretched signal and polarization data;
• means for time compressing the digital time-stretched signal components to produce digital signal components of the polarization agile signal;
• and
• means for producing the polarization agile signal from the digital signal components.

A digital polarimetric system for generating a polarization agile signal, comprising:

• an analog-to-digital converter configured to digitally sample an input signal;
• a memory device configured to receive digital samples from said analog-to-digital converter and store each of the digital samples in a plurality of memory locations to form a time-stretched sequence of digital samples;
• a digital signal processor configured to generate digital time-stretched signal components of the polarization agile signal from the time-stretched sequence of digital samples and polarization data, and time compress the digital time-stretched signal components to produce digital signal components of the polarization agile signal;
• a digital-to-analog converter device configured to receive the digital signal components and generate corresponding analog signal components of the polarization agile signal;
• a frequency converter configured to convert a frequency of the analog signal components to a transmission frequency;
• and
• a dual-polarization antenna configured to receive the analog signal components and transmit the polarization agile signal.

A digital transmit polarimeter, comprising:

• a signal time-stretching processor configured to produce a time-stretched signal by representing each of a number of samples of a digital input signal as a plurality of time-stretched samples;
• a data inverter configured to invert-samples of the time-stretched signal to produce an inverted signal;
• a first data shifter receiving first polarization data and delaying samples of the inverted signal by a number of sample, positions in accordance with first polarization data to produce a shifted signal;
• a first signal combiner configured to add the time-stretched signal and the shifted signal to produce a first digital time-stretched signal component of the polarization agile signal;
• a second signal combiner configured to add the inverted signal and the shifted signal to produce a sum signal;
• a second data shifter receiving second polarization data and delaying samples of the sum signal by a number of sample positions in accordance with second polarization data to produce a second digital time-stretched signal component of the polarization agile signal;
• and
• first and second signal time-compressing processors configured to respectively compress the first and second digital time-stretched signal components to produce first and second digital signal components of the polarization agile signal.