Coded data generation or conversion – Analog to or from digital conversion – Using optical device
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-09
2001-10-02
Tokar, Michael (Department: 2819)
Coded data generation or conversion
Analog to or from digital conversion
Using optical device,
C341S131000, C341S155000, C341S138000, C341S110000, C341S135000, C341S013000, 36, C385S012000, C385S024000, C385S037000, C385S040000, C385S122000, C359S199200, C359S199200, C359S199200, C359S199200, C359S199200, C359S199200, C250S227180
Reexamination Certificate
active
06297758
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to analog-to-digital converters. More specifically, the present invention relates to analog-to-digital converters using electrooptical technology to obtain very high digitizing resolution, sample speed and input bandwidth.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Analog-to-digital (A/D) converters of any known or extrapolated technology or architecture possess limitations when utilized for digitizing high frequency signals, which is critical to applications such as radio signal reception, image and sonar processing, and other high frequency signal applications. Typical capacities for current analog-to-digital converters are, for example, 1 Gigasamples per second (Gs/s) with 8 bit resolution and 5 Megasamples per second (Ms/s) with 16 bit resolution. Digitizing high frequency signals can require higher frequency response quantizing circuits, and digitizing wider bandwidth signal spectra can require higher sample speeds (the relationship of sample speed to digitizing bandwidth is well-known to practitioners of the art, and is set by the Nyquist Limit theorem, which dictates that the sample frequency must be at least twice the bandwidth to be digitized). These limitations pose problems with at least some present technology A/D converters.
Therefore, a method for obtaining digitizing resolution (in bits), sample speed and input bandwidth in excess of conventional A/D converters is desired.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An electrooptical scanning analog-to-digital converter for converting an analog voltage signal from a source to its corresponding digital equivalent in accordance with the invention includes a laser providing a beam having an initial position and multiple deflected positions. The voltage signal forms a deflection input to the laser. A first voltage of the voltage signal provides for the initial position of the beam and multiple other voltages of the voltage signal provide for the plurality of deflected positions of the beam. The invention also includes a phototarget array that has a first phototarget mapped to the first voltage of the voltage signal and multiple incremental phototargets each mapped to one of the multiple other voltages of the voltage signal. In some embodiments, the first phototarget and the multiple incremental phototargets are arranged along an axis substantially perpendicular to the initial position of the beam. When the beam is deflected from the initial position that illuminates the first phototarget, to one of the multiple deflected positions by one of the multiple voltages of the voltage signal, at least one of the multiple incremental phototargets is illuminated to provide one of multiple illuminated phototarget array values for conversion of the voltage signal to its corresponding digital equivalent. Other implementations can utilize two and three dimensional scanning schemes and are therefore not limited to the one dimensional (perpendicular axis) scanning scheme described above.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4185274 (1980-01-01), Gialloirenzi
patent: 4395702 (1983-07-01), Gottlieb et al.
patent: 4851840 (1989-07-01), Mc Aulay
patent: 6111530 (2000-08-01), Yun
Eppele Kyle
Jensen Nathan O.
Mai Lam T.
Rockwell Collins
Tokar Michael
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