Patent ID: 9678123
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: G01R

Claim:
1. A method of operating a radio frequency (RF) measurement system acting as a spectrum analyzer for eliminating image signals from a detected input RF spectrum, the method comprising: determining at least three local oscillator (LO) frequencies required for receiving the input RF spectrum; determining LO offsets between the at least three LO frequencies, wherein the determined LO offsets are non-uniform; mixing the at least three LO frequencies with the input RF spectrum to provide at least three corresponding intermediate frequency (IF) signals having an IF bandwidth, wherein at least one of the IF signals has the input RF spectrum mixed to a different portion of the IF bandwidth than at least one other of the IF signals, thereby providing overlapping coverage of the input RF spectrum; acquiring ADC time records for the IF signals; performing Fourier transforms (FTs) on the ADC time records to provide IF spectrums, each IF spectrum comprising a plurality of FT bins representing a corresponding plurality of RF frequency bins representing the input RF spectrum; and detecting RF responses from the IF spectrums to determine an RF response trace corresponding to the input RF spectrum.