DIFFERENTIAL BOXCAR INTEGRATOR WITH AUTO-ZERO FUNCTION

摘要

A switched boxcar integrating circuit suitable for use with high speed data acquisition systems such as an Optical Domain Reflectometer. The boxcar integrator comprises a differential preamplifier stage, a sampling switch, and an integrator. The sampling switch couples the output of the pre-amplifier to the input of the integrator. The integrator includes non-inverting and inverting stages for producing a differential integrated signal. The switch samples the output of the pre-amplifier. The samples are integrated by the integrator once a sufficient number have been acquired. The sampling switch includes a switch controller to synchronize the operation of the switch with the received signals. The integrator also includes an offset compensator and a reset switch which are coupled to the integrator. The offset compensator and reset switch set the integrator to zero and also correct any offset error. A feature of the boxcar integrator according to the present invention is the variable integrator aperture which allows the response of the receiver stage in an OTDR to be matched to the characteristics of the transmit stage.