Engineering Aspects of the Transceiver Design

Abstract

In this chapter, we gather together various engineering details of our radiolocation transceiver. One may be tempted to think of the present chapter as an implementation blueprint, but we should have no such pretentions. Every implementation of a technology goes through its own development cycles, addressing its own specific requirements of functionality, size, marketability and cost. Every new device has its own set of noise problems, electromagnetic interferences, integration issues and design errors that must be dealt with, and those can never be fully forestalled with written descriptions.

The aim of the discussion in Sect. 8.2 is to recognize yet again that radiolocation involves quantitative measurements. We have already touched upon the quantitative evaluation of crosstalk, losses, settling times etc. in Chaps. 4 and 5; here we present a general description of the instrument, in the hope that it will be helpful to the readers in avoiding their own specific pitfalls. This is also a good place to offer a summary of some practicalities, such as the breakdown of the radiolocator-transceiver into functional subsystems, communication between the subsystems, and other details that will be helpful in understanding this instrument.

Section 8.3 offers an engineering overview of a major subsystem, which is CalRadio, the open-design 802.11b transceiver that provides the wireless networking functionality to the radiolocator. Section 8.4 briefly describes the physical implementation of the instrument.