Multibit decorrelated spur digital radio frequency memory

Abstract

A decorrelated spur digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) system stores incoming radio frequency (RF) signals in a digital memory and at some later time replicates these RF signals at the output. The input RF signal to be stored is mixed with a local oscillator (LO) signal, which is coded with a decorrelation waveform, to produce an intermediate frequency (IF) signal which is next digitized with a multibit analog-to-digital (A/D) converter. This data is stored in a digital memory and is later retrieved from the memory and converted back to an analog IF signal. The IF signal is then mixed with the coded LO to produce a replica of the original RF signal. The code on the LO is the same decorrelation waveform used to produce the input IF signal. The resultant RF output spectrum can be made to be spectrally clean, i.e., containing no spurious harmonic signals arising from the signal's quantization. This invention has the significant benefit of allowing key design options to be selected, in particular such options include the number of bits per sample, the number of channels, and the decorrelation phase resolution to obtain the most appropriate cost, size, instantaneous bandwidth and spur level combination.