Automation of RF Characterization Process for the Development of Feedforward AGC of Software Defined Radio

Automatic Gain Control (AGC) are used on the receiver side of almost all the communication systems to adjust the power of the received signal. Software Defined Radios (SDR) mostly use Look-Up Table (LUT) based feedforward AGCs. The development of such AGC requires RF characterization of each SDR platform followed by piece-wise analysis and the subsequent operation algorithm. The process of RF characterization is a manual process which is both tedious and erroneous. In this paper, automation algorithm of the whole process is proposed as well as implemented on hardware. Through this research and development, the lengthy and tedious process has been reduced to an approximately 10 minutes single click process. The automated process has shown promising results as compared to the manual process with greater precision and reduced error. Through the proposed technology, the process of large scale assembly and production of SDRs for both military and commercial use can be eased.