Radio Receiver Technology: Principles, Architectures and Applications

Chapter II

Fields of Use and Applications of Radio Receivers

II.1 Prologue

Receivers are used in a wide range of applications independently of their type of construction (Fig. I.20). The descriptions in the following paragraphs will focus on terrestrial applications. In general, the main goals defined in performance specifications are:

• ‘most cost-effective designs for the mass market (consumer electronics)’

through,

• ‘higher technical demands regarding specific design parameters or receiver characteristics’

up to,

• ‘highly sophisticated special or general-purpose units to meet the highest commercial or military demands regarding both, receiver characteristics (Part III) and the sturdiness of electronics, mechanics, and other equipment parts.’ (Such equipment will be discussed in detail in the text below, as this information is scarce in the common literature.)

The collective name radio receiver refers to a design for the reception of wireless transmissions based on the utilization of electromagnetic waves (Fig. II.1). Ideally, this device extracts the full information content from the incident signal. Regarding wireless transmission technology, the fields of use for such devices can be divided into two main groups: units for receiving information/messages and units for measuring purposes. Over time, many different terms have been used which, today, become more and more blurred and may be summarized under the following main groups.

Figure II.1 Wireless transmission path with ...