Patent ID: 8841973

Claim:
A circuit arrangement for generation of radio frequency output signals which form a broadband frequency ramp, the circuit arrangement comprising: a reference oscillator; a phase detector; a voltage-controlled (VC) oscillator that generates an output signal; a frequency divider; a step-down mixer; and a local oscillator that generates a local oscillator signal, wherein: the reference oscillator, the phase detector, the VC oscillator, the frequency divider and the step-down mixer are part of a phase-locking loop; the frequency divider and the step-down mixer are in a feedback path of the phase-locking loop; the step-down mixer mixes the output signal and the local oscillator signal; the frequency of the output signal is adjustable by variation of a division ratio of the frequency divider; and the step-down mixer is an inverted position mixer that is located in the feedback path of the phase-looking loop in a manner that compensates variations of the division ratio in the frequency divider with the tuning steepness of the VC oscillator.