Correction of systematic effects in digitizing oscilloscopes

Abstract

This paper presents a procedure to improve the accuracy of a digital sampling oscilloscope in the acquisition of complex waveforms. The approach assumes knowledge of the spectral composition of the analyzed waveform, which must be within the oscilloscope bandwidth. Using suitable calibration data, additive correction terms are calculated which compensate for vertical gain inaccuracies due to in-band variations of the oscilloscope frequency response. A criterion is also given to determine when the correction uncertainty is acceptable.