Polarity coincidence techniques for correlation function measurement and system response evaluation

The correlation functions of many classes of signals can be derived quite simply from the correlation function computed from the waveform polarity (one-bit quantization) and in situations where one-bit quantization does not yield meaningful correlation functions, the addition of auxiliary signals can lead to a proper evaluation. The design of a flexible one-bit correlator is described using Micronor II (9 ns) circuitry which operates at a basic clock rate from 0¿10 MHz and yields information on signals up to frequencies of 25 MHz. Performance details are given for the evaluation of auto-correlation functions and cross-correlation functions of various signals, and, in particular, the application to system response evaluation using Gaussian noise and binary pseudo-noise sequences.