Comsat Corporation

Todd R Czerner

Donald Stuart Arnstein

James H Buzzelli

An enhanced nonlinear processor for RFI suppression uses a biased inverting limiter circuit. There are two parallel paths in the device; the first one is used to estimate the intensity of the RFI signal, the second one is used to process the signal. The first signal path employs an envelope detector and filter (to estimate RFI intensity) followed by a comparator circuit to avoid use of the processing if the RFI is too small; the second path has a biased inverting limiter whose characteristic is controlled by the output of the first path. When the estimate of the RFI intensity is close to being correct, the biased inverting limiter traps the large RFI signal, converting it into a higher order harmonic which is filtered out. The wanted signal is not trapped, but instead sees an 'effective' positive gain which allows it to pass through unaffected except for a gain factor. The net result is a reduction in the ratio of unwanted signal to wanted signal.

Voltage-variable biased inverting limiter for RFI suppression overview

An enhanced nonlinear signal processor for RFI suppression using either biased null zone amplifier or a biased inverting limiter. Two or more nonlinear interference processors are connected in cascade. As a result, a deliberate tracking error, selected to provide only a small amount of relative interference rejection, is introduced into each processor. The effect of each stage is cumulative until some limit to performance improvement, determined by the input/output characteristic of each stage, is reached. The benefits of this discovery are increased dynamic range capability (higher levels of interference-to-wanted signal ratio can be fully rejected), simplification of gain control, and increased flexibility in hardware implementation options resulting from reduced sensitivity to RFI tracking error.

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Todd R Czerner