Radio Receiver Technology: Principles, Architectures and Applications

Preface

The wish to receive electromagnetic waves and recover the inherent message content is as old as radio engineering itself. The progress made in technical developments and circuit integration with regard to receiver systems enables us today to solve receiver technology problems with a high degree of flexibility. The increasing digitization, which shifts the analog/digital conversion interface ever closer to the receiving antenna, further enhances the innovative character. Therefore, the time has come to present a survey of professional and semi-professional receiver technologies.

The purpose of this book is to provide the users of radio receivers with the required knowledge of the basic mechanisms and principles of present-day receiver technology. Part I presents realization concepts on the system level (block diagrams) tailored to the needs of the different users. Circuit details are outlined only when required for comprehension. An exception is made for the latest state-of-the-art design, the (fully) digitized radio receiver. It is described in more detail, since today's literature contains little information about its practical realization in a compact form.

The subsequent sections of the book deal with radio receivers as basically two-port devices, showing the fields of application with their typical requirements. Also covered in detail are the areas of radio receiver usage which are continuously developed and perfected with great effort but rarely presented in publications. ...