EFFECTS OF ACOUSTOOPTIC CORRELATOR BANDWIDTH ON CODED PULSE-COMPRESSION

The effects of limited frequency bandwidth on the response of space-in tegrating acousto-optic correlators are considered. They are studied i n the classical scope of pseudorandom sequence correlation, used in sp read spectrum systems, in terms of the SNR enhancement in the correlat or compared to the ideal (infinite bandwidth correlator) enhancement f igure. An analytical approach using filtering of both useful signals a nd noise at the correlator input is developed. Numerical computations are drawn that show a loss of 4 dB when the code chip rate used is equ al to three times the correlator bandwidth. Experimental results obtai ned for an acousto-optic cell are also presented and agree well with t he theoretical results. (C) 1996 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentat ion Engineers.