Advanced Real-Time Spectrum Analyzer Technology Provides New Insight Into Radar Signals

摘要

The transient nature of radar system RF pulses poses a variety of diagnostic challenges. In response, the real-time spectrum analyzer has offered unique transient microwave signal analysis capabilities for almost two decades. However, until recently, many high performance radar applications required measurement performance that was simply beyond the state of the art in real-time Digital Signal Processing (DSP). With advancing DSP speed, the latest real-time spectrum analyzers no longer suffer from these limitations. The present generation of real-time spectrum analyzers not only offers the frequency coverage, instantaneous bandwidth and dynamic range for advanced radar diagnostics, but they also incorporate several new technologies of particular interest to the radar professional. For the first time ever, Digital Phosphor Technology (DPX~(TM)) has been applied to the real-time spectrum analyzer, enabling engineers to see spurious artifacts between radar pulses in real-time. This allows simultaneous viewing of pulse spectrums and spurious signals below the pulse spectrum's peak amplitude. Such capability is not possible with conventional swept tuned spectrum analyzers. In addition, the automatic pulse measurement technology algorithms pioneered by Tektronix have been refined to provide enhanced pulse measurement accuracy under the more difficult wide bandwidth measurement circumstances supported by the latest generation of analyzer. Harnessing the digital signal processing power of these real-time instruments offers many new ways to examine radar pulses. This seminar explores how these innovations and others promise to change traditional approaches to radar testing.