THE THEORY OF THE RADIOMETER
Abstract
The sensitivities of various types of radiometers in current use are computed. The formulation of the problem is kept flexible enough to permit finding the optimum radiometer design. This optimum depends on the definition of sensitivity, and this definition is one of the details in which the procedures used differ from most of the previous English literature on the subject. Another such detail is the model used for the gain fluctuations as a random process. The problem of radiometer analysis is related to the general statistical problem of the estimation of the variance of a stationary random process. The definition of sensitivity and the model for the gain fluctuations permit the evaluation of the sensitivity of a conventional d-c radiometer. The sensitivity is evaluated of a general type radiometer (which includes dc radiometers and conventional modulated radiometers as special cases), and the performance is optimized over the design parameters which are available. The question of optimum detector law is appended. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 02, 1958
- Accession Number
- AD0257332
Entities
People
- D.h. Lyons
- E.j. Kelly
- W.l. Root
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology