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Miranda, 2007 Receiver Design 1

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Receiver Design

Summary:
1. Receiver Architectures
• Receiver Requirements
• Tuned Radio Frequency Receiver
• Direct Conversion Receiver
• Superheterodyne receiver
• Duplexing
2. Dynamic Range
• Minimum Detectable Signal
• Sensitivity
• Dynamic Range
• Automatic Gain Control
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1. Receiver Architectures

Receiver purpose: reliably recover the desired signal from a

wide spectrum of transmitting sources.
The receiver design has evolved to provide the following:
• improved performance
• more efficient use of the radio spectrum for more users
• communication over longer distances
• use of lower transmit powers

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Receiver requirements:
• High gain (≈ 100 − 120 dB) to provide an adequate baseband
signal level. The received signal power level can be as low as
−100 to −120 dBm. The overall gain should be spread over the
RF, IF and BB stages (with less than 50 dB per stage to avoid
potential instabilities and oscillations.)
• Selectivity to reject adjacent channels, image frequencies and
interference. Selectivity is usually provided by the IF filter.
• Downconversion form RF to IF for practical signal processing
(ex. cellular multiuser communications)
• Detection of the analog or digital information
• Isolation from the transmitter to avoid saturation (or even
destruction!) of the receiver in transceiver equipment operating
in either half-duplex or full-duplex modes. (by means of an RF
switch, duplexer or circulator.)
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Tuned Radio Frequency receiver

Earliest designs, poor selectivity and sensitivity, difficult to tune.

Utilized in low-cost, low-performance applications (remote control)

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Direct Conversion receiver

• also termed “zero-IF” or homodyne receiver

• the local oscillator is set to the desired RF signal (direct
conversion to baseband)
• AM signals are directly demodulated
• selectivity is controlled by a simple low-pass filter
• gain may be spread trough the RF and BB stages
• simpler and less costly than heterodyne receivers
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• there is no image frequency!

• disadvantage: the LO must have an high degree of precision
and stability to avoid drifting of the received signal
• applications: Doppler radars, satellite broadcast receivers

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Superheterodyne receiver

• by far the most popular architecture

• allows improved selectivity and higher gain through the use of
an IF filter and amplifier
• At higher frequencies it is often necessary to use two or three
IF stages to avoid LO stability problems (dual-conversion /
triple-conversion heterodyne receivers)

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Dual-conversion superheterodyne receiver block diagram

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Duplexing

Duplexing is technique used to connect both transmitter and

receiver to a single antenna system while providing isolation
between them (isolation can be as high as 100 dB)

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Duplexing components include:
• T/R switch (for half-duplex systems) - switch time: µs,
isolation: 40 dB. GaAs FETs, PIN diodes and
electromechanical switches are the most common devices used.
• Duplexing filter or duplexer (for full-duplex systems) - filter
with separate TX and RX passbands (act as a preselection
filter on receive and an out-of-band spurious attenuator on the
transmit path). Insertion loss is in the order of 1 – 3 dB
(potential noise figure degradation)
• Circulator (full-duplex systems that operate at the same TX
and RX frequencies). Popular in radar systems.
• Diplexer - device that combines two or more frequency
segments into a a single channel (a duplexer can also be
referred as a diplexer)
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Transmit and receive passband responses of a duplexing

filter

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2. Dynamic Range

In a receiver, this concept involves the following parameters:

• Minimum Detectable Signal power (MDS): dependent on the
modulation type as well as the noise specs of the antenna and
receiver.
• Maximum Allowable Signal power (MAS): limited by the the
compression or third-order intercept points.

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Beware of other dynamic range definitions (linear dynamic range

and SFDR)!

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Minimum Detectable Signal (MDS)

For a given receiver noise power, MDS determines the minimum

signal-to-noise ratio at the output of the receiver (SNRo )
Typical minimum SNR for various applications

Alternatively, minimum is sometimes expressed in terms of signal

plus noise and distortion–to–noise and distortion ratio (SINAD).
S+N S
SINAD = =1+
N N
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Receiver block diagram for the determination of MDS

So and No can be calculated as follows:

So = GSi No = k(TA + Te )BG

where B is the receiver bandwidth (set by the IF filter) and k the

Boltzman constant. The output SNR is then:
µ ¶
So Si min
=
No min k(TA + Te )B
Using the receiver noise figure spec F (Te = (F − 1)T0 ), the MDS
can be evaluated by:
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µ ¶
So
Si min = kB[TA + (F − 1)T0 ]
No min

For digital modulations recall that SNR can be obtained this way:
Es So B
=
N0 No R

For the case where TA = T0 = 290 K, the MDS equation yields:

µ ¶
So
Si min = kT0 F B
No min
or, in dB:
µ ¶
So
Si min (dBm) = −174 + B(dBHz) + F(dB) +
No min (dB)

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Example 1: MDS calculation for a GSM receiver
• Modulation: GMSK, α = 0.3
• Symbol rate: R = 271 kbit/s
• Signal bandwidth: B = 200 kHz
• Noise figure: F = 8 dB
• Receive antenna noise temp.: TA =290 K
• Minimum acceptable BER: Pb = 10−4
First, determine the minimum SNR at the input of the
demodulator:

Ãr ! µ ¶
Eb Eb
Pe = Q α −→ ≈ 15dB
N0 N0 min

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µ ¶
So Eb R
= ≈ 16dB
No min N0 B

Then, MDS can be calculated using:

µ ¶
So
Si min = −174 + B + F +
No min
= −174 + 53 + 8 + 16 = −97 dBm

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Example 2: Antenna gain for WLAN link
• Modulation: 802.11b, 11 Mbit/s
• Sensitivity: −85 dBm
• Tx power: 13 dBm
• Frequency: 2.4 GHz
• Link path: 2 km, LOS
First, determine the free space attenuation, L:

L = 92.4 + 20 log10 (d, km) + 20 log10 (f, GHz) =

92.4 + 20 log10 (2) + 20 log10 (2.4) = 106 dB

Si min = PTx + Gant − L −→ Gant = −85 − 13 + 106 = 8 dB

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Sensitivity

Is the minimum detectable signal RMS voltage, for a given input

impedance, Z0 (receiver voltage sensitivity or simply sensitivity).
p
Vi min = Z0 Si min

Receiver Dynamic Range

Definition:

MAS
DRr =
MDS

MAS can be defined by the P1 or P3 at the input of the receiver

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Automatic Gain Control

Main purpose: reduce the received signal dynamic range for proper
demodulation.

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Block diagram of an AGC circuit at the IF stage

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Receiver signal level analysis

Excessive signal levels cause:

• Harmonic distortion
(1 dB compression point, P1 )
• Intermodulation distortion
(3rd-order intercept point, P3 )

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Receiver signal level analysis

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