Patent ID: 8401134
Filing Date: 2013-03-19
Classification: H04B

Abstract:
1. A method for designing a broadband signal intercept system, said method comprising the steps of: providing an analog signal; choosing a signal bandwidth of a Nyquist zone in which the signal bandwidth is less than one half of a digital sampling frequency; quantizing a voltage amplitude of a sample of the analog signal; converting the analog signal to a digital sampled signal to associate a time with each digital sample; establishing a signal dynamic range from a minimum detectable signal to a largest signal wherein the minimum detectable signal is capable of capture in the presence of the largest signal and wherein the frequency separation of the minimum detectable signal and the largest signal is greater than the combined bandwidths of the two signals and wherein the largest signal can be specified in terms of power density at an air interface and wherein the minimum detectable signal can be specified in terms of power density at the same air interface such that the signal dynamic-range requirement can be defined in terms of the signal power densities at the air interface; segmenting the air interface as an Eplane into a plurality of equal-area Epixels, such that each Epixel has at least two associated signal channels wherein two of the signal channels correspond to two orthogonal components of a polarization vector associated with incident electromagnetic signal energy at each Epixel such that a capture area of the Eplane is the sum total of a capture area of the plurality of the Epixels wherein the capture area of each Epixel is chosen such that an incident electromagnetic signal with a largest signal power density will not overload an analog-to-digital converter associated with the signals paths associated with that Epixel and wherein the total number of Epixels and the capture area of the Eplane is such that an electromagnetic signal at the Eplane with a minimum detectable signal power density will result in a minimum detectable signal when all of the digital samples from all of the Epixels that are active are combined from the digital outputs of a plurality of digitized Epixel electromagnetic signals; sampling the signal voltage associated with each Epixel signal path during said analog-to-digital conversion step; converting each signal voltage sample into an N-bit digital word representing a voltage quantization interval in which the signal voltage sample falls at the time of said sampling step; and combining the digital samples to evidence energy associated with each electromagnetic signal incident on the air interface within the signal processing bandwidth such that energy of the largest signal and energy of the smallest signal are separated.