Digitalized quadrature modulator for fast frequency hopping

This paper proposes a digitalized quadrature modulator for burst-by-burst carrier frequency hopping in TDMA-TDD systems. It employs digital frequency synthesis and a multiplexing modulation scheme to give the frequency offset to the modulated IF signal. Moreover, to reduce the frequency settling time of the RF synthesizer below the guard time duration, a phase and frequency preset (PFP) PLL synthesizer is employed. By employing the digital modulation scheme, the proposed modulator needs only one D/A converter, as a result, the complexity of adjusting the DC offset and amplitude between analog signals of the in-phase and the quadrature phase is eliminated. The performance of the proposed modulator is analyzed theoretically and simulated by computers. Theoretical analyses show that the frequency settling time with 15 MHz hopping width in the 1900 MHz band is reduced by more than 75% from that of the conventional synthesizer. The settling time is less than 40 μs which is shorter than the typical guard time of the burst signal format. The analyses also show that the power consumption of the proposed modulator is lower than that of the conventional modulator employing a full band digital frequency converter. Furthermore, the computer simulation confirms that the power spectra and the constellations of the proposed modulator for the coherent and the π/4-shift QPSK modulation schemes can be successfully generated.