Ensuring High SIGINT Signal Fidelity Requires a Coherent Approach

Challenges to SIGINT system design increase every year. Addressing them requires all of the available signal processing tools using a scalable architecture.

MARC COUTURE, SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER, ISR SOLUTIONS GROUP CURTISS-WRIGHT DEFENSE SOLUTIONS

SIGINT systems have the daunting challenge of ensuring that the fidelity of the signals they capture off the air remain as true to the analog original as possible, from the RF and microwave front end through digitization by an ADC and processing by one or more types of devices. This task is in addition to maintaining coherence of signals from multiple sensors, and processing of GPS, timing, time difference of arrival (TDOA), signal identification, and possibly other functions. The increasingly dense electromagnetic environments they must process and the wider amounts of spectrum they must “ingest”, make their design extraordinarily difficult. These issues can be effectively addressed with a scalable approach that makes best use of the ADCs, FPGAs, DSPs, and other processing elements in the system.