Synthetic instruments options for searching for unknown spurs

This paper discusses synthetic instrumentation, and its ability to perform demanding measurements like spur searches. It gives a brief overview of synthetic instrumentation, and discusses the justification for moving measurements to synthetic systems. It then discusses a specific demanding measurement, the search for unknown spurs. It outlines the specific challenges faced when making this measurement using a synthetic implementation, as well as the advantages that a synthetic system has over traditional hardware. Possible approaches and solutions are outlined for each of the identified challenges. The paper concludes with a discussion of other possible advances that could be made when using synthetic implementations for these demanding measurements.