Design of a software defined, FPGA-based reconfigurable RF Measuring Receiver

Abstract

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) plays a central role in the implementation of software-defined, Synthetic Instruments (SI) [1]–[5]. Moving as many signal processing tasks as possible from the analog to the digital domain makes for a more flexible, future-proof system. Advances in DSP can also be exploited to reduce the complexity of, or remove completely, the analog components. In this work, the design of a high performance FPGA-Based Radio Frequency (RF) Measuring Receiver is described. It is shown how advanced DSP can be used to synthesize multiple measurements from a single source on a compact, software defined platform.