digital systems

Multichannel, The push is to place the analog to digital con-

verter (ADC) as close as possible to the antenna,
thereby performing a variety of receive functionali-

multiband VHF ties in the digital domain. This ensures ease of

design and flexibility.
Conventional Nyquist sampling requires that

software radio based the sampling frequency FS must be more than

twice the highest frequency of the signal to be
digitized. However, for bandlimited signals at

receiver eliminates
higher frequencies, this leads to using a very
high sample rate.
For example, a 30 MHz band (including guard
band) limited signal centered at 175 MHz would

RF down conversion require a sample rate of 380 MHz. However, using

the principle of undersampling, the same bandlim-
ited signal may be sampled using a sample fre-
quency of 80 MHz.
Software defined radio promises ease of Images are formed as part of any sampling
process and frequencies higher than the FS/2 are
design and flexibility. The push is to place folded back in the 0 to FS/2 region. For proper
the ADC as close as possible undersampling (without aliasing), the signal must
be bandlimited prior to sampling. The sample fre-
to the antenna. The introduction quency FS must satisfy:
of high-speed and high-performance
ADCs means bandlimited VHF signals
may be directly digitized utilizing
and
undersampling principles, thereby
simplifying the design of the RF front end.

By Angsuman Rudra where TBW is the total bandwidth (including

guard band), FL is the low end of the band, FH is
the high end of the band and k is any non zero pos-

T he advent of software defined radio (SDR) has

promised great hope for radio communications
by offering ease of design and flexibility not previ-
ously possible.
itive integer.
Figure 1 illustrates the undersampling concept.
The signal of interest is of bandwidth 10 MHz cen-
tered at 175 MHz. The total bandwidth (including
guard band) is 30 MHz. Thus the high end of the
band is 190 MHz, while the low end of the band is
at 160 MHz. A sample rate of 80 MHz satisfies the
conditions discussed earlier.
After undersampling, frequencies higher than
FS/2 fall in the 0 to FS/2 band:
Frequencies between FS/2 to FS are flipped
and fall between FS/2 to 0; frequencies between
FS to 3FS/2 retain their spectral shape. Table 1
explains the folding in of frequencies higher than
Nyquist frequency.

Sensitivity
The sensitivity of a radio is defined to the
minimum input power needed to achieve a cer-
tain performance metric (such as SINAD for
voice communications and BER for data commu-
nications). For FM radios, 12 dB SINAD is a
typical metric. The signal to noise ratio (SNR for
the input RF signal) needed to achieve this
SINAD is usually budgeted at 8 dB to 10 dB.
Figure 1: Undersampling can digitize bandlimited signals at sample frequencies less than The typical sensitivity of a FM receiver is shown
Nyquist frequency in table 2.

38 www.rfdesign.com July 2003

Design example For VHF frequencies, a single stage the second harmonic of the LO mixes
A 16 channel VHF receiver (135 downconversion is a difficult task due with the second harmonic of an inter-
MHz to 175 MHz) is chosen as a design to the higher order products formed in fering channel at 139 MHz (a 2-2 prod-
example. The conventional design is the mixer. uct) to produce an IF of 22 MHz, which
compared to the software radio based For example, if a single stage down- will degrade the desired channel.
design to demonstrate its effectiveness. conversion was attempted to an inter- Usually, a 2-2 product is 40 dB to 50
mediate frequency (IF) of 22 MHz, and dB below the 1-1 product. However, if
Conventional Implementation the desired channel frequency is 150 the interfering channel (in this case
The block diagram for a conventional MHz, the local oscillator (LO) would 139 MHz) is a stronger interferer, the
radio is shown in figure 2. need to be set at 128 MHz. However degradation of performance may be
substantial.
IF Folded Frequency Region Designation A two-stage downconversion usually
avoids this problem because the first
0 to FS/2 0 to FS/2 1st Nyquist stage upconverts the signal to a higher
frequency. For example, if the first IF
FS/2 to FS FS/2 to 0 (spectral flip) 2nd Nyquist is chosen to be 900 MHz, the variable
LO must be in the range of 765 MHz to
FS to 3FS/2 0 to FS/2 3rd Nyquist 725 MHz (to cover the 135 MHz to 175
MHz band).
3FS/2 to 2FS FS/2 to 0 (spectral flip) 4th Nyquist
The interfering frequency band that
Table 1: Folding of IF due to undersampling causes the 2-2 product to fall at 900
MHz is in the 275 MHz to 315 MHz
band, which will be filtered out by the
Parameter Value Comments front end bandpass filter. A second
stage downconverter can now bring the
kT: Thermal Noise Floor -173.8 dBm/Hz k: Boltzman’s Const 1.380658e- signal back to a 22 MHz IF.
The diagram shown in figure 2 is for
23 W/K/Hz; a single channel. The same architec-
T: Temp in absolute scale ture has to be repeated 16 times to
implement a 16-channel receiver. This
(assumed 300 K) implies significant hardware, design
costs and large size for the multichan-
nel receiver.
B: Bandwidth 54.1 dB 54.1 dB with respect to 1 Hz A slow speed ADC is typically
employed in a conventional radio, one
that digitizes baseband signals. For
Total Thermal Noise -119.7 dBm direct digitization of VHF signals, a
high speed ADC is essential.
Noise Figure of Radio 10 dB Typical Noise Figure of a Receiver
SDR-based implementation
An SDR-based implementation is
SNR Required for 12 dB 8 dB 8 dB to 10 dB SNR is needed for shown in figure 3.
SINAD 12 dB SINAD for FM demodulation In the SDR-based implementation, a
very simple RF front end is used. The
Sensitivity -101.7 dBm RF front end consists of bandpass fil-
ters and gain stages, but no RF down-
converters. The VHF band is broken up
Table 2: Sensitivity of a typical FM receiver (260 kHz bandwidth)
into three bands and digitized by high
speed ADCs. The digital down convert-
ers (DDC) produce basedbanded com-
plex output. Demodulation may now be
performed on the I/Q data, producing a
truly software defined radio.
The sample frequency of the ADC is
chosen to match the undersampling
sample frequency requirements dis-
cussed above. Table 3 shows the sam-
pling frequency for each band.
Other channelization schemes are also
possible. Table 4 provides an alternate
channelization and sampling scheme.
Figure 2: Block diagram for a conventional VHF radio receiver A comparison of the SDR-based design

40 www.rfdesign.com July 2003

 method and the traditional implementa-
tion is summarized in table 5.

Performance of the SDR-based

Figure 3: Block diagram for an SDR-based 16-channel VHF receiver
Band Usable Frequency
Number
1 135 MHz to 149 MHz
2 148 MHz to 162 MHz
3 161 MHz to 175 MHz
Table 3: The sample frequency for the three bands
Total Bandwidth
130.0 MHz to 162.5 MHz
140.4 MHz to 175.5 MHz
150.8 MHz to 188.5 MHz
VHF receiver
The performance of the SDR-based
VHF receiver is tested with a 20 kHz
tone-modulated FM signal with fre-
quency deviation of ±75 kHz. The set
up is shown in figure 4.
The demodulated output and the FFT
of the downconverted basebanded I,Q
data are shown in figures 5, 6 and 7. The
20 kHz tone is faithfully reproduced.
The FM sensitivity for the three
bands is shown in table 6 (page 49).
The items in bold and blue represent
Sample Frequency the 12 dB SINAD point. The FM sensi-
tivities obtained for the SDR-based
VHF receiver are better than the typi-
65 MHz cal radio shown in table 2.
Figure 8 shows a plot of the RF sen-
70.2 MHz sitivity for all the frequencies in all
three bands. The points in the graph
75.4 MHz represent the measured values and
the line represents the regression line
fitted through the data points. The

42 www.rfdesign.com July 2003


Figure 4: Test setup for measuring the performance of the software-radio-based VHF receiver
Band Usable Frequency
Number
1 135 MHz to 155.5 MHz
2 154.5 MHz to 175 MHz
Table 4: An alternate sampling scheme for the VHF receiver
sensitivity for 12 dB SINAD is
obtained from the regression line as -
105.4 dBm about 4 dB better than the
typical VHF receiver.
44
mance. This article demonstrated that a
practical multichannel, multiband soft-
ware-radio-based VHF receiver provides
substantial performance enhancement.
The 14-bit high speed ADCs makes
implementation of a truly software
radio VHF receiver a reality. An actual
VHF receiver is implemented using the
RF conditioner, a four input, 105 MHz
ADC board with on-board 16 digital
tuners and FPGA.
The performance of the SDR-based
VHF FM receiver is about 4 dB better
than a typical VHF FM receiver. A
Total Bandwidth Sample Frequency multichannel, multiband VHF receiver
may, thus, be implemented at a frac-
tion of the cost of traditional receivers.
124.5 MHz to 166 MHz 83 MHz The design is greatly simplified, as RF
downconverters are no longer needed.
139.5 MHz to 186 MHz 93 MHz The RF stage consists of bandpass fil-
ters, and automatic gain control blocks,
channelizes and amplifies the signals.
As downconversion and tuning is
Conclusion performed in the digital domain, the
Software-radio-based multichannel, same RF front end is used for the mul-
multiband VHF receivers provide tiple channels, thereby reducing system
unprecedented flexibility and perfor- Continued on page 49
www.rfdesign.com July 2003
Figure 5: FM demodulation - 106 dBm at 136 MHz. The bottom plot is the FFT Figure 6: FM demodulation — 100 dBm at 136 MHz. The bottom plot is the
of the received I,Q data. FFT of the received I,Q data.

Traditional implementation SDR-based implementation

Higher cost Lower cost

Larger size Smaller size
Involved RF design — RF downconverters needed Simplified RF design — filters, AGC, no RF downconversion
Very little programmability — Extremely flexible —
filter characteristics are not programmable filter characteristics may be very easily programmed

Analog filters have less out of band rejection Digital filters have greater out of band rejection
High stability needed for multiple local oscillators Local oscillators are generated via digital means —
numerically controlled oscillators - and is not an issue

Narrowband operation — one channel at a time Wideband operation — ADC is digitizing a large spectral band

Table 5: Comparative analysis of the traditional implementation and the SDR-based implementation

Figure 7: FM demodulation: -95 dBm at 136 MHz. The bottom plot is the FFT Figure 8: FM sensitivity plot for all the bands combined
of the received I,Q data.

46 www.rfdesign.com July 2003

Table 6: FM sensitivity for 260 kHz channel bandwidth (20 kHz tone modulation, ±75 kHz deviation)
cost. High performance ADC cards,
with DDCs reduce the size of the
receiver, making the receiver suitable
for airborne or ship borne applications
where space is a premium.
Further optimization of the RFC (in
terms of noise figure and gain) will
improve the overall performance of the
receiver.
RF Design
About the Author
Angsuman Rudra, M.Eng., MBA, P.Eng, is the director of radio products
for Interactive Circuits and Systems Ltd. (ICS at www.ics-ltd.com). He leads
the development of software radio, and provides strategic direction for radio
product evaluation. Interactive Circuits and Systems Ltd. designs and manu-
factures real-time data acquisition and processing products for the sonar,
radar, communications and instrumentation markets. Rudra can be reached
at arudra@ics-ltd.com.
www.rfdesign.com 49