EMC-aware analysis and design of a low-cost receiver circuit under injection locking and pulling

In low-cost receiver applications, the preselect filter is often omitted in order to reduce the footprint of the total system. However, the immunity of the receiver can be severely compromised by this approach. This paper focuses on the effects of co-located sources on the local oscillator (LO), specifically injection locking and pulling. To this end, a low-cost radio receiver (RF) front-end is designed for operation in the 2:45 GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio band. In addition to the effects on the oscillator, the consequences on the receiver's performance are evaluated as well. For the first time in literature, this work demonstrates the critical necessity to take the potentially detrimental effects caused by injection locking and pulling into account during Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC)-aware design.