Complex heterodyne for undersampled chirped sinusoidal signals

Abstract

We describe a method for analyzing frequency-chirped sinusoidal signals using a complex heterodyne, sometimes also known as complex demodulation on the digitized waveform. This method allows one to use prior knowledge of the signal to reduce the effective bandwidth of the signal. The method can be used to extract a frequency-chirped signal even when it is sampled well below the Nyquist criterion. Accordingly, the method facilitates the use of less-expensive data acquisition and signal processing hardware than has traditionally been used for these applications. This technique is particularly useful for high-precision (parts in 10(9)) interferometer applications in which there exists a differential acceleration between the two arms (commonly found in absolute gravity meters or gradiometers).