Saw-based chirp fourier transform and its application to analogue on-board signal processing

This paper reports on the work done at ELAB-RUNIT on surface acoustic wave (SAW) on-board signal processing. The main processing is done by the analogue chirp Fourier transformer (CFT) and its inverse (ICFT). In a CFT, the input signal is transformed from an FDMA format to a TDM format and at the same time filtered by a filter bank. By multiplying and convolving the signal with chirp waveforms, the CFT is implemented by one bandpass cover filter and one chirp filter. The paper demonstrates that SAW reflector array compressors (RAC) built by ELAB-RUNIT have suitable chirp responses and adequate precision for digital satellite communication. Two applications are described. An on-board multicarrier demodulator (MCD) for 9·6 kb/s QPSK carriers and a processor for filtering, routeing and beam steering (FROBE) for flexible transparent repeaters. For MCDs the use of SAW CFTs leads to a power consumption for demultiplexing and A/D conversion of 15 mW per carrier with room for improvements. For transparent paylods, the FROBE leads to more flexibility and narrower guardbands than can be obtained by other analogue processors.