High performance receiver for RFI mitigation in radio astronomy: Application at decameter wavelengths

As a consequence of the development of telecommunications radio astronomers have to deal with an increasing number of unworkable observations polluted by man-made radio interferences. Thus, a lot of efforts are made to develop specific mitigation techniques. However, it appears that algorithm efficiency is related to the quality of the acquisitions. The first objective of this paper is to show that: 1) receivers must be linear enough to prevent any spread of strong interferences, 2) receivers must reach sufficient spectral resolution to extract radio astronomical information between interference lines. As a result of these two preliminary points, the second objective is to describe the design of our new generation receiver. It is a high dynamic range powerful system for wideband measurements with high spectral resolution and with real time interference excision capabilities.