System Utilization of Electronic Frankensteins

Short-sighted system planning has resulted in the evolution and system mix of both megawatt and microwatt power level equipments with little concern for the over-all system degradations which result from sub-system interactions. Unfortunately the effects of these interactions are often felt far beyond the immediate system. As a result, the full use of extremely sensitive sensors and detectors, which are often very susceptible to spurious and background noise and to interference, may not be economically feasible in view of the cost or impracticability of the accessory background noise and spurious signal elimination devices. As pulsed equipment powers increase to megawatts and pulse lengths become longer than communications bit lengths, spurious suppression far beyond state-of-the-art is necessary if the over-all system is not to be degraded. The problem is serious in that the industrial managers or military commanders will not realize problems exist until the system fails when it is needed. Graphical analysis methods and guidelines for future developments are presented.