Wideband base station receiver with analog-digital conversion based on RF pulse width modulation

This paper presents a novel wideband receiver architecture for base stations. In contrast to existing systems, the analog-digital conversion is done directly in the radio frequency domain and is based on pulse width modulation. Measurements with a 5MHz LTE signal received at carrier frequencies varying between 900MHz and 2350MHz confirm the frequency flexibility of this concept. The captured spectrum of a WCDMA signal with 80MHz bandwidth demonstrates the possible detection of broadband signals. In addition, the capability of supporting instantaneous reception of non-contiguous frequency bands is proven by successfully detecting two signals with carrier frequencies of 900MHz and 2350MHz.