Gated chirps for signal processing and communication engineering

A method of signal processing in SAW based chirp impulse compression systems, yielding a better performance and an enhanced capability of interference suppression is introduced. Therefore, the interdigital transducers´ bus bars of the dispersive delay line are interrupted, each tap is connected to a pin of the package. The coherent summation is done outside of the device. The frequency and time domain are linked due to the chirp dispersion, the time domain instantaneously is coupled to the geometry of the SAW device due to the propagating acoustic wave. Therefore, gating away of one or more taps represents switching off the chirp in the time and frequency domain, respectively. The method can be applied for a wide range of applications, for interference reduction, control of the transmitted spectrum, etc. Due to its simplicity it is suitable even for low cost systems. Theoretical and experimental results prove the capability of the method