System architectures for narrowband reconnaissance receivers and beamforming applications

Reconnaissance receivers require flexible, reprogrammable equipment to meet the needs for processing current signals, including variants, as well as emerging signal formats of interest. Advances in commercial A/D, subband tuner, and DSP technology are providing a new generation of flexible, programmable hardware that is being utilized in reconnaissance receiving systems to monitor a wide range of signal formats. In addition, beamforming applications for interference rejection and direction finding are becoming more cost effective as they optimize beam patterns to minimize the bit-error-rate of the recovered signal. Careful system analysis and application of advanced signal processing techniques are enabling the reconnaissance design engineers to utilize COTS boards and subsystems to meet the growing challenges of mission requirements.