Non-uniform wavelet bandpass sampling Analog-to-Information Converter: a hardware implementation and its experimental assessment

The paper presents the experimental assessment of an architecture of Analog-to-Information Converter (AIC), based on Non-Uniform Wavelet Bandpass Sampling (NUWBS), for use in wideband signal acquisition. To this aim, a preliminary simulation analysis was carried out, with the aim of verifying the capability of the architecture of correctly reconstructing the compressively acquired signal and evaluating the Spurious Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) of the reconstructed signals, in presence of additive noise, quantization noise, and timing jitter of the sampling clock. Then, a modified hardware implementation for the NUWBS AIC architecture was realized, by using commercial off-the-shelf components, that uses a low-pass filter in the analog correlator block. The realized prototype was experimentally characterized by evaluating the SFDR of the reconstructed signals. The paper describes the realized prototype and discusses the results obtained in both the simulation and the experimental phase.