Results of July 2003 Space-Time Delta-Sigma Hardware Experiments at China Lake
Abstract
This report presents an overview of the test setup, procedures, and important results from the July 2003 experiments. It does not document an operational or prototype system, provide any mathematical background (references are provided), or contain sufficient detail to recreate the experiment. Spatio-temporal delta-sigma modulation, a concept developed at NRL, is an extension of conventional delta-sigma modulation to signals that are functions of space as well as time. At the current time the primary research focus is on its use in transmit antenna arrays, where each antenna element is driven by one or more high-power switches and quantization noise is suppressed via noise shaping for propagating spatial frequencies in a temporal frequency band of interest. It is hoped that eventually the technique will lead to reasonably efficient high-power transmit arrays with the extraordinary linearities demanded by future multifunction RF systems. References 1-3 provide the mathematical foundation and explore some of the design issues. In July 2003 the authors spent two weeks performing hardware experiments at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, CA. The primary goal was to demonstrate the ability to shape the quantization noise of a transmit array in both spatial and temporal frequency. A secondary goal was to show the flexibility of a simple array driven by binary signals by transmitting multiple signals on independent beams and frequencies. The experiments were designed to be both expedient and cost-effective, and as a result the level of performance achieved falls far short of practical system requirements. This did not prevent us from accomplishing our goals, however, and it provided clear directions for the substantial future hardware research and development that will be required for practical implementations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 26, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA439967
Entities
People
- Dan P. Scholnik
- Donald Bowling
- Frank Schiavone
- Jeffrey O. Coleman
- Josef Brandriss
- Michael Neel
- Scot Rogala
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory