International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / A simplex or ‘passive’ continuous wave and monopulse seeker tracks specific attributes of a target’s radio frequency (RF) radar return in some coordinate frame. In particular, a return carries dynamic information in amplitude (ω) and frequency (ω) at some point in azimuth (r,θ) and elevation (r,θ) planes. A passive seeker requires an illuminator beam, I(ω,φ,θ), and may require a frequency modulation on the illuminator. To model a simplex target return, we have based the dynamics on a point source radar cross section (RCS) along a line of sight (LoS) radial. The Az and El angles are equivalent to antenna placement, the attenuation and frequency dynamics are modeled in commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / PSK demodulators have been an integral part of the signal recovery process for decades. Unless a person has designed a demodulator, how much can a person know or understand about its operation? Instruction on how to set up a demodulator’s parameters to acquire a signal is found in a manual. An explanation of why parameters are set a certain way to handle particular input signal characteristics is often not provided in a manual. This paper is designed to be a tool to aid engineers, technicians, and operators who utilize demodulators. Its purpose is to relay the functionality of a demodulator to a user so that he or she can take advantage of its control parameters and status feedback. Knowing the reasons why a demodulator is set to certain parameters may greatly reduce confusion when a system is not working properly. On site troubleshooting may be accomplished without the need to call the manufacturer of the product. Another advantage of understanding the operation will be recognized when interfacing with the manufacturer. A person will be able to relay the information to a design engineer more easily, and will understand more of the engineer’s feedback on the potential problem. Utilizing this paper as an aid to enhance operation of a PSK demodulator will bring a user one step closer to understanding the complexity of its design.

Low size, low power, and wearable bio-signal recording systems require acquisition front-ends with high common-mode rejection for interference suppression and adjustable gain to provide an optimum signal level to a cascading analog-to-digital stage. This thesis presents the realization of microcontroller operated double-differential (DD) recording setup with automatic gain control (AGC) and automatic balance control, which can adjust the magnitude of recorded bio-potential signal to a target level and reject common-mode interference for full-bandwidth recording without filtering. Microcontroller code realizes the automatic control method of gain and balance adjustment by detecting, computing, and varying parameters to set timing clock pulses, which determine the gain magnitude and balance state. The automatic balance control compensates for imbalance in electrode interface impedance. The double-differential amplifier is implemented using two integrated variable gain amplifiers (ASIC) and one adder. Measured results of the variable gain amplifiers fabricated in 0.35 £gm CMOS technology show an input spot noise of 169 nV/¡ÔHz, a NEF below 10, and a circuit active area of 0.017 mm2 with a power consumption of 1.44 £gW. Measured results of the double-differential amplifier setup confirm interference suppression of 25.7 dB, tunable gain range of 39.6 dB, and 239 nV/¡ÔHz noise assuming ¡Ó10% interface mismatch. Practical measured examples incorporating the chips confirm gain control suitable for bio-potential recording and interference suppression in a balanced DD arrangement for electrocardiogram and electromyogram recording.