Pre-Calibration of Gain Control Circuit in Spread-Spectrum Demodulator

The present invention relates to communication systems and is particularly directed to a technique for pre-calibrating a gain control circuit employed in a spread-spectrum demodulator.

In a spread-spectrum communication system, wherein transmitted signal power is spread over a transmission bandwidth many times greater than the information bandwidth, bandwidth is sacrificed in an effort to achieve jam resistance, reduce the probability of detection, and to provide multipath signal rejection.

To maximize the performance, i.e. jam resistance, the signal-to-noise ratio for an acquired signal may be very small (on the order of several dB) and it is of paramount importance that the noise floor of the correlation detector by which a spread-spectrum signal is acquired be controlled so that it (i.e. the noise floor) does not change as a function of the input signal-to-noise ratio of the detector. For this purpose, an automatic gain control (AGC) amplifier may be inserted in the correlation detection signal path, with the control voltage for the AGC amplifier being derived from the output of the detector.

In accordance with the present invention, a predetermined noise floor voltage, supplied together with the output of the correlation detector as a control voltage for the AGC amplifier, is subjected to a pre-signal reception adjustment or calibration, in order to compensate for drift in the noise floor or reference voltage and to correct for gain errors in the correlation detector channel thereby insuring proper operation of the detector during the sequential detection process. For this purpose, a prescribed random signal sequence, totally different from that contained in any useful transmission to be acquired, is initially applied to the correlation detector for a predetermined period of time or calibration interval. Through the use of such a random noise sequence, the output of the correlation multiplier is such that the system appears to be monitoring white noise, thereby guaranteeing that adjustment of the noise floor level of the correlation detector will be premised upon a true noise signal. The output of the correlation detector is sampled and stored, successive samples are compared with the predetermined or fixed reference noise floor voltage, and successive adjusted noise floor reference values are produced, representative of differences between the noise level in successive correlation samples and the predetermined noise reference. These adjusted reference values are accumulated and this accumulated noise floor is fed back to the AGC amplifier as the noise floor control reference. At the end of the calibration interval, the prescribed random signal sequence which produced the white noise is terminated and further accumulation for the noise floor reference is prevented. The receiver is switched to a normal operating mode and control of the AGC amplifier is determined by the noise floor reference level which has been adjusted or calibrated to the voltage represented by the accumulated noise floor level at the end of the calibration interval. Preferably, the calibration circuitry is implemented in digital form, with the duration of the cablibration interval being controlled by a digital counter which counts clock pulses up to a prescribed number and then prevents further accumulation of noise reference values. The output of the counter may also be coupled as a control signal to cause a spread-spectrum signal acquisition PN sequence to be substituted for the random noise sequence which had been applied to the correlation detector during the calibration mode.

The single FIGURE is a schematic block diagram of an AGC calibration loop in accordance with the present invention.

Referring to the FIGURE, depicting an embodiment of the AGC calibration loop in accordance with the present invention, a spread-spectrum input signal is applied to a multiplier 11 which multiplies the spread-spectrum input by a pseudo noise (PN) sequence generated by PN sequence generator 13. Multiplier 11 may comprise a suitable double-balanced mixer, the output of which is coupled through wideband bandpass filter 10 and amplified by an AGC amplifier 12. The bandwidth of filter 10 is selected to be much wider than the bit rate, so that the signal-to-noise ratio of the input to AGC amplifier 12 is very small and near a prescribed noise floor threshold. The output of AGC amplifier 12 is coupled to detector 8 and to narrow band filter 9. Narrow band filter 9 may have a bandwidth an order of magnitude or more narrower than the bandwidth of wide band filter 10, so as to effectively pass the signal of interest to detector 14. Detector 14 rectifies and detects the envelope of the amplified product of the spread-spectrum input signal and the PN sequence applied to multiplier 11 by PN sequence generator 13.

PN sequence generator 13 may comprise a switchable or controlled sequence generator which normally produces an acquisition mode pseudo noise sequence to be correlated with the pseudo noise sequence contained in a receiver spread-spectrum input signal; in response to a control signal output from control counter 22, PN sequence generator 13 may generate a calibration mode PN sequence which is substantially different from any sequence expected to be contained in an incoming spread-spectrum signal to be acquired.This second or calibration mode PN sequence has a spectrum characteristic approximating that of white noise and is substituted for the acquisition PN sequence during AGC calibration.

Detector 8, which forms part of the AGC control loop, rectifies and detects the envelope of the wide band noise-representative output of AGC amplifier 12 and couples this envelope-detected signal via resistor 28 to amplifier 25, the output of which is fed back to control the amplification of AGC amplifier 12. Amplifier 25 has a feedback capacitor 30, coupled between a negative input and its output. Resistor 27 couples the positive input of amplifier 25 to ground, while the summing junction at the negative input to amplifier 25 is further coupled through a resistor 29 to a variable tap of potentiometer 24, which is connected across a suitable bias voltage source (V). The feedback coupling of the output of detector 8 through amplifier 25 to AGC amplifier 12 provides a standard AGC feedback loop for controlling the gain of amplifier 12. AGC amplifier 12 level-controls the noise so that the noise floor of the correlation detection process is substantially invariable as a function of the input S/N ratio of the correlation detector formed of multiplier 11 and detector 14. Proper setting of the noise floor is established by way of potentiometer 24 and the output of D-A converter 23, respectively coupled to amplifier 25 through resistors 29 and 26, respectively, as will be explained below.

The output of detector 14 is applied to a sample and hold circuit 15, the contents of which are converted from analog into digital form by A-D converter 16. The digital representation of the contents of sample and hold circuit 15 are stored in accumulator 17 (such as twelve bit accumulator), the output of which is coupled to a subtractor 19. Subtractor 19 compares the contents of accumulator 17 with a preset noise floor reference voltage value stored in register 18 and supplies a corrected or adjusted noise floor value to a long (on the order of fifteen bits, e.g.) accumulator 21. The contents of accumulator 21 represent a noise floor adjustment voltage to be supplied to the feedback loop for AGC amplifier 12, to correct for factors such as gain variations introduced by the correlation detector components, drift in the noise floor reference, etc. The operation of accumulator 21 is controlled by control counter 22 which counts clock pulses generated by clock circuit 20 in response to a start calibration input. Clock circuit 20 is also coupled to each of accumulators 17 and 21 to update their contents at each clock pulse. The contents of accumulator 21 are converted into an analog voltage by D-A converter 23 and this noise floor deviation representative analog voltage is coupled via resistor 26 to the summing junction at the negative input terminal of feedback amplifier 25. Accumulator 21 is enabled by control counter 22 as long as control counter 22 continues to count clock pulses from clock circuit 20, once the calibration sequence has been initiated by a resetting start calibration input signal. Control counter 22 is also connected to PN sequence generator 13 to control the mode of operation and thereby the PN sequence supplied by generator 13 to multiplier 11. During the calibration mode, as control counter 22 is counting clock pulses from clock 20, it supplies a control signal to generator 13 so that the output of generator 13 is the above-described calibration mode PN sequence. Upon control counter 22 reaching an established pulse count, counter 22 disables accumulator 21, so that it retains its present contents without further updating, and counter 22 also supplies a control signal to PN sequence generator 13, causing generator 13 to begin supplying an acquisition mode PN sequence to multiplier 11 in place of the calibration mode noise sequence.

Prior to placing the AGC calibration loop into operation, a pre-established noise floor reference voltage may be loaded into reference register 18. This reference voltage may be derived from calculated system design criteria and represents the expected value at the output of AGC amplifier when its gain is unity and the detector is correlating white noise. In addition, the tap of potentiometer 24 is adjusted so that the detector output of detector 14, corresponding to the rectified output of amplifier 12, is equal to the preestablished noise floor reference. For this purpose, PN sequence generator 13 may be briefly switched (by a control separate from the output of control counter 22, not shown) to supply a calibration mode PN sequence to mulitiplier 11, and the output of detector 14 is measured separately while the tap of potentiometer 24 is adjusted until the analog voltage output of detector 14 equals the voltage value represented by the contents of register 18. Potentiometer 24 may have a voltage output range considerably greater than the range over which the noise floor may be adjusted, so that the output of subtractor 19, in effect, constitutes a calibration mode controlled vernier for the tap setting of potentiometer 24.

Upon the application of a START CALIBRATION or enable signal to control counter 22 from a suitable switch (not shown), accumulator 21, which, like accumulator 17, had been previously cleared or reset, becomes enabled. Also, control counter 22 causes PN sequence generator 13 to supply a calibration mode or white noise representative PN sequence to multiplier 11. The product of the receiver input and the white noise representative sequence applied to multiplier 11 is coupled through wideband bandpass filter 10 and amplified in AGC amplifier 12 and the envelope of the rectified product is detected by detector 8. The output of AGC amplifier 12 is also coupled via narrow band filter 9 to detector 14, so that a detected representation of the signal of interest may be temporarily stored in sample and hold circuit 15, to be used for adjusting a noise floor deviation voltage. The output of detector 8 is coupled through resistor 28 to amplifier 25 and is summed with the voltage preset by adjusting the tap of potentiometer 24, as described above, and a variable accumulated noise floor deviation voltage supplied via resistor 26 from D-A converter 23 and accumulator 21; thus, AGC amplifier 12 will be controlled by the output of detector 8 relative to a noise floor voltage defined by the sum of the output of potentiometer 24 and the contents of accumulator 21.

Now, as the output of detector 14 is sampled and stored in sample and hold circuit 15, it is converted into digital format by A-D converter 16 and supplied to accumulator 17. A summation of samples, on the order of sixteen samples, is supplied from accumulator 17 to subtractor 19 wherein it is compared with the pre-established noise floor voltage stored in register 18 and any difference therebetween is stored in accumulator 21. In the absence of a change in expected detector and gain control parameters, then, for a white noise input, the output of detector 14 should be equal to the value stored in register 18, whereby the difference between the inputs to subtractor 19 will be zero, so that zero is stored in accumulator 21, and the output of D-A converter 23 is zero. As a result, the noise floor is effectively the setting of the tap of potentiometer 24. However, any change in system parameters which effectively shifts the noise floor reference will cause the output of subtractor 19 to differ from zero and this deviation is supplied to accumulator 21. D-A converter 23 now adds to the voltage represented by the tap setting of potentiometer 24 a value other than zero, so that the gain of AGC amplifier 12 will be adjusted to the proper value based upon the corrected noise floor. In the absence of any further change in the system, the corrected noise floor will cause the output of detector 14 to be adjusted to a value whereby the output of subtraetor 19 again becomes zero, the contents of accumulator 21 being uneffected. For a further change in system gain or parameter drift, causing the output of subtractor 19 to be non-zero, a new correction value (positive or negative) will be supplied to accumulator 21 to adjust the reference noise floor. This operation continues, until a prescribed number of detector output samples, corresponding to a pre-established clock count of counter 22, has been processed, whereupon control counter 22 reaches its pre-established count (its preset capacity defining the calibration mode time interval), and the enable signal previously applied from counter 22 to accumulator 21 is terminated. The contents of accumulator 21 at this time will be used as the calibrated noise floor reference voltage to be applied as a gain control reference for amplifier 25 for spread-spectrum signal acquisition during sequential detection. PN sequence generator 13 also switches to its acquisition mode of operation and begins supplying the acquisition mode PN sequence to multiplier 11. The outer or second AGC calibration loop is no longer updated; still, the result of its noise floor calibration operation during the calibration mode described above is retained to be used as the gain control reference for ensuring accurate signal acquisition during the sequential detection process.

The length of the calibration interval or number of samples (established by the number of clock pulses from clock generator 20) which are processed to adjust the noise floor reference to be used for spread-spectrum signal acquisition will depend upon the final error desired (e.g. how close to a pre-established value the final loop gain is to be), so that the number of samples or length of the calibration interval may vary as design criteria demand. Depending upon calculated parameters and operational design, a calibration interval covering several thousand samples may reduce precalibration S/N error to less than a tenth of a dB.

While we have shown and described one embodiment in accordance with the present invention, it is understood that the same is not limited thereto but is susceptible of numerous changes and modifications as known to a person skilled in the art, and we therefore do not wish to be limited to the details shown and described herein but intend to cover all such changes and modifications as are obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.