High speed monobit analog-digital converter system with integrated programmable front-end

Abstract

A monobit analog-digital converter (ADC) system and method are disclosed, the system comprising a front-end signal conditioning system equipped with a programmable attenuator and amplifier for processing analog signals, where the attenuator, which may include a cascade of programmable attenuator cells, is controlled by an attenuation control signal to adjust signal attenuation to cause a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the negative domain, after which an amplifier amplifies the attenuated signal with the suitable SNR, where the amplified signal is then converted to a monobit signal by a monobit ADC, thereby achieving an ADC system that enables conditioning and digitizing of RF signals over a wide range of input signal powers with control over the output spectrum signal power and harmonics to achieve low-power real-time general-purpose broadband blocker detection for adaptive radios and for interference detection, main beam radar signal detection, and instantaneous frequency measurement, among other fields requiring general-purpose blocker identification with low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C).