Metrological characterization of the square waveform as calibration signal for data acquisition systems

One of the most traditional test signals for characterizing the dynamic behavior of a broad class of analog instruments is the square waveform. Square wave testing is widely used for time domain analysis of linear systems. In the frequency domain, using a proper square waveform, a single measurement can completely characterize a linear system. For this purpose, a high accuracy and reproducibility are requested for the square waveform test signal. Those metrological properties can be achieved at lower cost than traditional sinusoidal stimulus signal generators. In this paper the quality of a low cost reference square waveform generator is experimentally investigated