On the concept of an all digital sensor design

The digital communications revolution that began in the last decade has produced technology advances that have yet to be included in the design of remote sensing sensors especially high resolution optical and RF sensors. Current wireless telephony operates with software radios as an integral design construct with improved performance over analog equivalents. The commercial technology sector driven by aggressive business plans and deployment strategies allowed the development of RF components, processors and embedded software implementation, to enable all digital system architectures. Traditional design approaches used in the telecommunications industry have not typically been transferred to the sensor design community. This paper addresses a new sensor design approach that incorporates the technology and philosophy of the telecommunications industry.