A new generation of high frequency receivers for civil aeronautics communications

One of the most obvious ways to make air travel more green is to save fuel. The best place to save fuel is a reduction in the size, weight, and power of equipment which must be carried on all air transport aircraft, every flight. New technologies allow substantial size, weight and power savings for HF Transceivers by allowing the receiver section to directly sample the 2-30 MHz spectrum using a high speed analog-to-digital converter. Using this technology, new generation receivers can simultaneously receive multiple signals on different frequencies, allowing a single HF transceiver to provide both the ATC voice operations and datalink (HFDL). This can permit the reduction of the number of HF transceivers on board from two to one, saving power and weight. This paper will address how direct sampling receivers work and describe the implementation of one. It will cover some history in order to understand the revolutionary nature of these design techniques.