Measuring the Power Law Phase Noise of an RF Oscillator with a Novel Indirect Quantitative Scheme

Xiaolong Chen,Cuiling Peng,Fushun Nian,Huiting Huan,Baoguo Yang

doi:10.3390/electronics8070767

Xiaolong Chen, Cuiling Peng + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8070767

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Journal: Electronics	Publication Date: Jul 9, 2019
Citations: 6	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Xidian University

Abstract

In conventional phase noise metrology, the phase noise of an oscillator is measured by instruments equipped with specialized and sophisticated devices. Such hardware-based testing usually requires high-performance and costly apparatuses. In this paper, we carried out a novel phase noise measurement method based on a mathematical model. The relationship between the phase noise of a radio frequency oscillator and its power spectral density (PSD) was established, different components of the power law phase noise were analyzed in the frequency domain with their characteristic parameters. Based on the complete physical model of an oscillator, we fitted and extracted the parameters for the near-carrier Gaussian and the power law PSD with Levenberg-Marquardt optimization algorithm. The fitted parameters were used to restore the power law phase noise with considerable precision. Experimental validation showed an excellent agreement between the estimation from the proposed method and the data measured by a high-performance commercial instrument. This methodology can be potentially used to realize fast and simple phase noise measurement and reduce the overall cost of hardware.

Highlights

Phase noise occurs in almost all sorts of oscillators [1], ranging from radio frequency (RF) [2] to optics [3], and presents a direct impact on the performance of modern communication, radar and navigation systems in terms of reliability, detectability, and accuracy [4]
Has good phase noise performance which is conducive to experimental verification
We developed a novel phase noise measurement methodology based on a modified with spectrum analyzer and obtain its power spectral density (PSD) with the best resolution that can be achieved, (ii) PSD

Summary

Introduction

Phase noise occurs in almost all sorts of oscillators [1], ranging from radio frequency (RF) [2] to optics [3], and presents a direct impact on the performance of modern communication, radar and navigation systems in terms of reliability, detectability, and accuracy [4]. The independent power indices indicate five sorts of phase noise which were studied by parts [17] or separately [18] in terms of their PSD where the factor of each power law term indicates the magnitude of its corresponding noise component Such “heuristic derived” [16] factors in the Leeson’s model, have not been determined directly, only qualitative conclusions were drawn from simulation from many of the presented works. Among these works, Chorti et al [19] developed a comprehensive power law model with respect to the PSD of a free oscillator by analyzing zero-mean Gaussian stochastic phase noise in the frequency domain, which essentially connects the power law phase noise of the oscillator to its measurable power spectrum density. The results indicate that the proposed method exhibited similar accuracy with respect to a high-performance commercial phase noise analyzer

Testing Modality

Phase Noise Model

Factor Approximation

Results and Discussion

The value

Conclusions