The first experimental demonstration of a SASP-based full Software Radio receiver

This paper presents the principles of a Sampled Analog Signal Processor (SASP) dedicated to software radio mobile device. Many technological bottlenecks are to be overcome. The idea is to design a discrete analog signal processor to challenge theses bottlenecks. The main issue associated with the A/D conversion is thus avoided. The SASP aims to select a spectral envelope of a RF signal among all RF signals. To reach that target, the SASP processed analogically the RF input signal spectrum thanks to an analog Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). Once the spectrum processed, only the voltage samples representing the signal envelope to be treated are converted into digital. The selection of few voltage samples among thousands others replaces the classical mixing and filtering operations. It dramatically reduces the A/D conversion frequency from GHz to MHz frequencies. Design strategy, applications and for the very first time, measurements are presented.