A VGA processor for full color display of numerical and graphical data. Simplified view of peak power measurement system. Precision Digitally Controlled Calibrator. In order to eliminate the error associated with diode non-linearity, a calibration table is created for each sensor which stores the response to a series of precision power levels covering the effective dynamic range along with additional data. This allows the DSP to calculate the instantaneous power of each individual sample of the RF envelope.
Average power is calculated by summing the instantaneous power values.
The non-linear relationship between instantaneous RF power level and diode output is resolved before any averaging is done, thus, the result is correct for an arbitrary waveform. Random power samples in time can be processed by the DSP to provide results in any form needed by an application. This includes peak power versus time, peak power relative to a trigger event, average power over various time intervals, peak to average ratio, maximum peak power in a time interval, etc. It does not matter that the samples are disordered in time. For a stationary signal, the sum of the random samples over arbitrary, equal length time intervals is the same, provided there is no periodic relationship between the sampling rate and the modulating signal.