SFDR Considerations in Multi-Octave Wideband Digital Receivers

Electronic warfare (EW) receivers must intercept and identify unknown enemy signals among a congested wideband spectrum of multiple interfering signals without the benefit of dynamic range and sensitivity improvement techniques employed in communications and radar receivers. The incident RF band limiting employed in communications receivers is an unwanted trade for the EW receiver that seeks to process ever wider instantaneous bandwidth in less time. In the radar realm, receiver dynamic range benefits from matched filtering, whereby the received radar return is correlated with a copy of the transmitted signal.

Anticipating the coming era of digital EW receivers with multi-octave bandwidth,this article discusses new challenges and considerations when designing for best-in-class dynamic range.