This dissertation presents new concepts in front end design for receivers with large, multiband tuning ranges. Such receivers are required to support large bandwidths (up to 10's of MHz) over very large tuning ranges (30:1 and beyond) with antennas that are usually narrowband, or which at best support multiple narrow bandwidths. Traditional techniques to integrate a single antenna with such receivers are limited in their ability to handle simultaneous channels distributed over very large tuning ranges, which is important for frequency-agile cognitive radio, surveillance, and other applications requiring wideband or multiband monitoring. Direct conversion architecture is gaining popularity due to the recent advancements in CMOS--based RFIC technology. The possibility of multiple parallel transceivers in RF CMOS suggests an approach to antenna--receiver integration using multiplexers. This dissertation describes an improved use of multiplexers to integrate antennas to receivers. First, the notion of sensitivity--constrained design is considered. In this approach, the goal is first to achieve sensitivity which is nominally dominated by external (environmental) noise, and then secondly to improve bandwidth to the maximum possible consistent with this goal. Next, a procedure is developed for designing antenna-multiplexer-preamplifier assemblies using this philosophy. It is shown that the approach can significantly increase the usable bandwidth and number of bands that can be supported by a single, traditional antenna. This performance is verified through field experiments. A prototype multiband multimode radio for public safety applications using these concepts is designed and demonstrated. / Ph. D.

We are interested in measuring the in situ antenna performance in analog land mobile radio (LMR) FM systems. The gain (efficiency and directivity) and self-impedance of an antenna sufficiently characterize its performance and a number of traditional methods exist to measure these quantities. However it is hard to do antenna gain measurements using these methods. Furthermore, it turns out that volumetric antenna gain measurements are not quite relevant for understanding in situ performance. In this thesis, we present a novel approach for directly measuring the in situ performance of antennas in analog LMR systems. The procedure involves receiving an FM signal simultaneously using the antenna under test (AUT) and a reference antenna. Both received signals are demodulated to audio using separate but identical receivers. Then a convenient method for characterizing the audio signal quality is to analyze the private line (PL) tone. The PL tone signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is calculated by measuring the power of the tone relative to the sub-audio noise power. The PL tone SNR for both antenna systems is compared as it provides a ``bottom line'' evaluation of the antenna performance. The audio SNR can also be mapped to RF SNR using a theoretical method. From simulation and experimental studies, we conclude that the RF SNR estimated using this technique is within 0.5 dB of the actual value for RF SNR values between +3 and +36 dB. Finally, we demonstrate this procedure in actual in situ LMR antenna measurements. / Master of Science