Cannon Ergos S.p.a.

Fairwinds Technologies, LLC

Timothy Hillner

Pavlo Bobrek

Glenn Link

Keith Adams

A device and method for estimating the frequency difference between antennas having asynchronized local oscillator references includes a frequency meter configured for connection with radio frequency signals from two antennas and configured to output a measured frequency difference between baseband filtered signals of two antennas. The frequency meter includes a phase meter, a quadrant transition, and a frequency meter counter. The phase meter receives in-phase and quadrature pairs of filtered signals and output a phase difference between the pairs. The quadrant transition state machine receives the phase difference, detects a quadrant associated with the phase difference, and detects a change between the detected quadrant and a previously detected quadrant. The frequency meter counter then accumulates the quadrant transitions and direction over a desired interval to establish a measure of the frequency difference between the two radio frequency signals input into phase meter.

Digital frequency difference estimator for signals received from different antennas

A signal processing apparatus and method provides the ability to dynamically select a subset of subcarriers from a received frequency division multiplex (FDM), select which subsets of subcarriers are coherently combined per satellite, and translate the selected subcarriers into a FDM having a smaller bandwidth. There are at least two first phase aligners, a digital cross-connect, and at least two second phase aligners. The first and second phase aligners are configured to receive a pair of in-phase and quadrature pairs and provide automatic gain control and coherent combing of the pairs. The digital cross-connect is configured to receive the in-phase and quadrature pairs from the two phase aligners and associate any in-phase and quadrature pair with another. Preferably, the apparatus further includes dual front-end digital channelizers configured to convert signals into an in-phase and quadrature pairs which are input to the first phase aligners.

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Middletown, DE, United States of America

Timothy Hillner