Automated Broadband High-Dynamic-Range Nonlinear Distortion Measurement System

This paper presents an intermodulation distortion measurement system based on automated feedforward cancellation that achieves 113 dB of broadband spurious-free dynamic range for discrete tone separations down to 100 Hz. For 1-Hz tone separation, the dynamic range is 106 dB, limited by carrier phase noise. A single-tone cancellation formula is developed requiring only the power of the probing signal and the power of the combined probe and cancellation signal so that the phase shift required for cancellation can be predicted. The technique is applied to a two-path feedforward cancellation system in a bridge configuration. The effects of reflected signals and of group delay on system performance is discussed. Spurious frequency content and interchannel coupling are analyzed with respect to system linearity. Feedforward cancellation and consideration of electromagnetic radiation coupling and reverse-wave isolation effects extends the dynamic range of spectrum and vector analyzers by at least 40 dB. Application of the technique to the measurement of correlated and uncorrelated nonlinear distortion of an amplified wideband code-division multiple-access signal is presented.