An enhanced Fourier transform spectrometer with a search algorithm

Abstract

Interferometric instruments have the following serious weak points: (1) the necessity of doing a Fourier transform that involves a vast amount of calculation; (2) the lack of knowledge of suitable measuring conditions until the Fourier transform is finished; and (3) the spectral resolution of the conventional Fourier-based techniques is significantly affected by the sampling rate, data length, and noise in signal processing. In this paper, an enhanced spectrometer is proposed using the modified forward-backward linear prediction method (MFBLP) with a search algorithm. To document the advantage of the method presented, a computer simulation for multiple-wavenumber estimation is investigated. The MFBLP method is truly superior to the fast Fourier transform (FFT) method. In general, the spectral resolution using the FFT method is proportional to the data length. In this paper, however, it is shown that excellent results can also be obtained from only 60 sample points using the FFT method. Moreover, from experimental results, we also conclude that the sampling rate must be consistent with the condition 632<f/sub p//spl middot/t/spl middot/D<3164, where f/sub p/, represents the value of the pulse generator frequency in Hz, t the observation time, and D the decimation factor.