Radar Signal Acquisition and Analysis Using High Speed Modular Digitizers

Radar signals which use pulsed waveform with short duty cycles, multiple modulation types, and critical timing require measurement systems that provide high bandwidth, proportional sample rate, long memory, and fast data transfer. High speed modular digitizers are ideally suited for acquiring and processing radar signals and offer multiple benefits fitted to these measurements. They offer high bandwidth, long acquisition memories, and special acquisition modes to maximize memory usage, these compact instruments provide high speed measurements and analysis of great accuracy.

This article will highlight some of the advantages of using high speed modular digitizers for radar system measurements. Radar systems rely on pulse modulated radio frequency (RF) carriers which generally include frequency, phase or complex modulation. The role of the measurement instruments is to acquire these pulsed waveforms with the greatest possible fidelity and measure the key parameters. Consider the radar signal in Figure 1. Here a basic pulse modulated 1 GHz RF carrier.