An Extremely Broadband Software Configurable Six-Port Receiver Platform

A software configurable receiver front-end based on six-port technology for a frequency range from 2 GHz to 20 GHz is presented. Its discriminator circuit is composed of coaxially connected, and commercially available passive elements. Simulation and measurement results of quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) demodulation tests at carrier frequencies between 2 GHz and 20 GHz are shown. Without the use of hardware filters and amplifiers data rates up to 1 MBit/s can be demonstrated. The achieved low bit error rate (BER) proves the capability of this new concept for high bit rate wireless data links. For demodulation, a new packet based real-time calibration method was applied. Due to its inherent broad band properties, the proposed front-end is especially qualified for the realisation of multistandard, reconfigurable receiver platforms. An introduction to emerging six-port applications will be given. The functional principle of the six-port receiver including the theoretical background are explained. Simulation and measurement results are discussed and possible improvements will be pointed out.