Design and simulation of microwave front end of a DIFM receiver using COTS

This work presents an unique approach to system engineering and the design of the front end of an IFM receiver ranging from 0.5 to 8 GHz. It includes detailed mathematical calculations of the front end of the IFM receiver. The sensitivity, and dynamic range, based on COTS components for a given probability of detection and false alarm rate were calculated. The simulation results from antenna to phase correlator on CAD software are presented. COTS from different manufacturers was evaluated to achieve an optimum sensitivity and dynamic range for the receiver. Two different kinds of components were considered, i.e., package hybrid devices and surface mount components. A software program in C language was developed for the entire calculation of the receiver. The design involves careful consideration of various components' noise figure, gain and third order intercept. Preliminary design calculations and simulations show that surface mount components in the range of 0.5 to 2 GHz show better performance in terms of cost with the dynamic range of 50dB and a sensitivity of -77dBm. The design calculations and simulation also show that a dynamic range of 31 dB and tangential sensitivity of -73dB can be achieved using hybrid-packaged devices in the 2 to 8 GHz band.