Si Updates (Background)

I've taken some time to update the spectral investigation software (Si) application to allow better control over sweep rate, resolution and noise floor.  For reference, the first hardware configuration used is a simple one stage IF conversion.  It uses a BREC A-B stack.  That diagram is shown below.

This provides basic narrow band spectrum analyzer or tracking generator capability.  Adding additional down conversion stages and filtering does not change the fundamental structure of the software or approach.

Spectral Estimation Overview

The Si application is designed like the rest of the BREC software.  That is to say it is based around a multithreaded user space application with user space device interfacing software in a single process.  As much processing as the BeagleBoneBlack (BBB) will support is placed in the application.  The basic interface to the core application (embedded within the WbSvr) is an ascii text command line interface via a TCP socket (i.e. you telnet into the process).  This allows a simple development and testing model.  All GUI functionality is factored to a java application on the PC based on swing.  

Frequency Scanning

The Si application frequency scanning approach is outlined in the following diagram.

At the beginning of each loop pass, the configured parameters are re-evaluated.  If changes are necessary they are applied and the remainder of the frequency step invalidated.  Changes here include reconfiguring the IF gain, frequency scan limits, FFT size and other key hardware and software processing parameters.  Samples are collected at the current frequency step.  This is done up front to allow the overlap in time of processing samples while the samples for the next frequency step are being collected (allows faster sweeps).  The next frequency step is calculated as the current frequency plus the currently measured frequency range.  No gaps in coverage are allowed.  Once the next frequency is calculated it is applied to the local oscillators and tracking generator(if enabled).  Once the LO is set and locked the sample queue is flushed and new samples for the next frequency begin accumulating.  At this point the samples collected earlier can be processed via FFTs to produce a spectral estimate around the original frequency center.  The spectral estimate can then be adjusted for gain calibration and sent to the graphical application across the network for display.

Measurement Bandwidth

For each frequency at which the spectrum is measured, there is only 500kHz of available information based on the 1MSPS sampling rate.  An under-sampling/aliasing approach is taken so the samples are centered about 10.5MHz to 11.0MHz.  Not all of the 500kHz is useable for spectrum evaluation for three reasons: IF filter bandwidth, DC bias, and out of band aliasing. The 10.7MHz ceramic filter has a 3dB bandwidth of 330kHz centered at roughly 10.75MHz.  If we are willing to deal with some reduction in response we can use more than the 3dB filter limit.  The ADC samples are not zero biased in sampling or software (this avoids the need for per unit offset calibration as the mid-point is set by a resistor divider reference and subject to component variance).  This offset produces non-zero response in the FFT in the lower frequency bin(s).  The out of band aliasing consideration is illustrated in the following figure.

 

In this diagram we have an input signal in dark blue and the IF filter response in light blue. It has a non-zero response beyond the aliasing limits.  The attenuated frequency component of the input beyond 11.0MHz will alias back down as the red frequency response.  By using less of the sampling bandwidth for measurement we avoid such aliased components of the input.  The further away from the aliasing edges we go the more the aliased responses are attenuated.

Estimate Spectrum

Once a set of samples is collected the spectrum can be estimated.  There are multiple techniques available, however, the simplest from a conceptual and implementation perspective is the FFT.

Given a set of samples, N of these are taken where N is the FFT size and have a window applied to them.  A discrete Fourier transform works on a periodic input sequence.  If the beginning samples do not “meet” the end samples, the periodic version of the signal has a discontinuity. This results in broadening of the spectrum.  The function of the window is to taper the beginning and ending of the time series to zero so that the periodic version of the samples has no such discontinuities.  If we have more samples than consumed by a single FFT, we can slide down the sample sequence and take another FFT (with windowing) and add this to our first estimate.  This results in averaging of the results.  Since the averaging is done with the raw FFT output (not just magnitude) better noise attenuation can be obtained (i.e. coherent averaging).  Once the FFT estimate is produced, the frequency bins for final use are selected.  This is based on the measurement bandwidth selected (MBW).  As the input signal has a DC bias we do not want to use the lower bins.  To avoid out of band aliasing we do not want to use all of the bins at either end.  We select a specific number of bins about the center of the FFT results.  This involves selecting a fraction of the N/2 available samples centered at N/4 (recall an N point FFT produces N outputs, however, half of them are the mirror image or negative frequencies in the case of a real valued input).  The full N/2 set represents Fs/2 where Fs is the sampling frequency and in our case 1MHz.  The number of bins selected is MBW(kHz)/500kHz or the fraction of the available bandwidth.  Once the frequency bins to be use are selected, the bins are converted to a magnitude squared result representing the power in a frequency bin (i.e. M2=I^2 + Q^2 where I and Q are the real and complex FFT values).  There is no need to apply a square root as this can be done in the logarithmic output by multiplying by 10 rather than 20.  The mag squared results have to be adjusted for averaging, FFT normalization, windowing and converted to a logarithmic scale.  It is during this normalization that we also optionally sum bins.  This summing is an integration whereby power from some number of frequency bins is combined yielding fewer bins but with more power in each.

Output Spectrum

Once the spectrum estimate at a given frequency and in dB is obtained the last step is to send the final outputs.  There is one small computation necessary beyond just sending the results – converting to an absolute value.  The FFT based output took care of normalizing and accounting for processing gains, however, the inputs were fundamentally 16 bit unsigned integers.  These came directly from the ADC and reflect 12 valid bits centered within the 16 available.  Hence, they are normalized to a 16 bit full scale value (logarithmically).  Several calibration factors regarding the gain in the analog processing chain must be applied.  Fundamentally, the ADC is converting an analog signal from 0 to 3.3V into a number from 0 to 2^12-1 (and doing it linearly we hope).  The power at this point is difficult to calculate as the input impedance of the ADC while sampling is not easy to precisely characterize.  However, we do know that the input to the first amplifier is terminated in 50 ohms (impedance matched at 300 through the ceramic filter and firmly terminated resistively at the first opamp input).  Suffice it to say that if we apply an offset to the normalized FFT outputs (in dB) we can convert from full scale 16bit logarithmic to volts at the ADC back to milliwatts at the first amplifier input.  Since this portion of the signal chain is narrow band these factors are constant and a function of the amplifiers settings.  We can then apply the additional gains at the amplifiers and mixers to get from the power level at the IF to the power level at the RF input.  This last set of gains is broadband and not constant over the frequency range (unlike the narrow band IF case).  Measured tables are used to apply these calibration factors.  What is ultimately sent to the graphical user display is an x,y pair representing the frequency and power level in dBm at that frequency.