Single dispersive delay line compressive receiver

Claim 1

A compressive receiver for determining the frequency of a received signal occurring within a prescribed acceptance band, comprising: (a) a surface acoustic wave dispersive delay line having a frequency band wider than said acceptance band; (b) means for applying a short impulse to the input of said delay line for producing at its output a downchirp signal of the same bandwidth as the line; (c) means providing a reference frequency lying just outside said acceptance band; (d) means for translating said acceptance band and said reference frequency by a fixed amount such that the difference between the center frequency of the translated band and the center frequency of said downchirp is at or near the center frequency of said delay line band; (e) means for deriving the difference between any frequency in said translated band and said downchirp, and the difference between said reference frequency and said downchirp, said difference in each case constituting an upchirp of the same bandwidth as said downchirp; (f) means for applying said upchirps to the input of said delay line whereby a pair of pulses appears at the delay line output due to compression of said upchirps; and (g) means for measuring the interval between the pulses of said pair, said interval being a measure of the frequency of said received signal.