Sensitivity of digital electronic warfare receivers

The results of a study of the sensitivity of digital electronic warfare (EW) receivers are reported. It is demonstrated with actual digitized data that the sensitivity of a digital receiver can be improved if enough signal processing is applied. The approach presented can be considered as a brute force one. This approach does not provide the best sensitivity that can be accomplished, but it will provide an improvement over conventional EW receivers. In this approach, the digital Fourier transform (DFT) is used to find the frequencies of the input signals. Several DFTs with fixed lengths are used. This approach will approximate the performance of a superheterodyne receiver with a fixed bandwidth, and is equivalent to several channelized receivers, each having a different resolution bandwidth. The technique improves the sensitivity of the receiver with reasonable complexity