Continuous wideband spectrum analysis over 10 GHz bandwidth with 61 dBc spur-free dynamic range

The latest performance results for a novel radio frequency (RF) sensor technology are presented for continuous monitoring of RF spectrum with large instantaneous bandwidth. The photonic approach relies on a spatial spectral (S2) holographic light absorbing crystal. The S2 spectrum analyzer as presently demonstrated operates on instantaneous bandwidths (IBW) over 10 GHz, in this case from 0.5–10.5 GHz, and is being extended to IBW of 40 GHz. The device presently outputs 100,000,000 frequency energy/time measurements per second, each measurement being the result of continuous monitoring spectrum analysis with energy amplitude assigned on a frequency and time grid from a continuous digital data stream at 500 MegaBytes per second. For these measurements, we have observed 61 dBc spur free dynamic range (SFDR) over the full IBW of 10 GHz. With low-noise RF gain we have observed RF sensitivity levels of −110 dBm for continuous RF tones with >59 dB two-tone SFDR. The resolution bandwidth (RBW) for the signals over a 10 GHz IBW can be as low as 100 kHz (100,000 frequencies per frame) at a 1 kHz frame rate (FR), and then increases with increased FRs that can vary from 1–200 kHz. All parameters of IBW, RBW and FR are fully reconfigurable on-the-fly for adaptive spectrum analysis, and the S2 device is also upgradeable to direction finding and other signal processing functions.