A L-band transceiver front-end for ADS-B system

D. Shen, L. Jin, L. L. Zhou, Z. F. Dan

The Research Institute Electronic Science and Technology of UESTC, University of Electronic
Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, People’s Republic of China
Email: shen_0905@163.com; jinlong@uestc.edu.cn; zhoull_79@hotmail.com; danzhenfeng@126.com

Abstract — In this paper, a T/R front-end based on

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broad-cast (ADS-B) is
proposed. The transmitter front-end with ASK/BPSK
modulators and the receiver are installed in two different
metal boxes. Experimental results of the front-end verify that
the phase noise of the PLL module is lower than -90dBc/Hz
at 10KHz offset from carrier of 1090MHz, and the peak
output pulse power of the transmitter is more than 51dBm.
And the noise figure of receiver measured is lower than
2.5dB. The overall power consumption of the PLL module,
modulators and the power amplifier module is about 4.35W.
Index Terms — transceiver, ADS-B, ASK/BPSK, PLL,
power amplifiers.

I. INTRODUCTION
The capacity of the airspace system around the world is
primarily constrained by the landing capacity of the
busiest airports. Historically, world air traffic has been
increasing at about 5-6% per year for many years and will Fig. 1. Block diagram of the transmitter.
likely continue that growth in the future. As air traffic
levels are expected to continue to grow and the number of
aircraft keeps soaring, one of the biggest problems that we
will soon encounter is the heavy communication traffic
between aircraft and ground stations. As a new
surveillance system, ADS-B is being implemented
worldwide by many aviation authorities that offers a great
leap forward in aircraft surveillance capabilities [1]. More
information is made available through ADS-B than with
conventional primary and secondary radars. As ADS-B
does not require expensive radar infrastructure, the cost of
implementation and maintenance is far lower [2]-[3].
Radio frequency (RF) T/R front-end is a critical element
for ADS-B system, and its cost-performance trade greatly
affects the entire air traffic surveillance. Many advanced
systems require high performance, highly reliability, small Fig. 2. Block diagram of the receiver.
size, light weight and low cost [6]. In this paper, we make
use of hybrid integrated circuits (HICs) technology to
develop a transmitter based on airplanes and a receiver II. DESIGN SOLUTION
based on land or airplanes respectively. There are several
advantages of this proposed T/R front-end: 1) the peak A. Transmitter
output power of the fabricated transmitter module is more A block-diagram of the transmitter based on ADS-B
than 51dBm (125W) at 1090MHz with a turn-on signal of system is shown in Fig. 1. It is composed of a phase-
1% duty-cycle; 2) the power consumption of the whole locked loop (PLL), modulators, a driver amplifier and a
transmitter front-end is low to 4.35W; 3) the receiver high power amplifier module. The PLL module consists
dynamic range is 65dB. of a crystal oscillator and an integrated integer-N
synthesizer. In order to obtain a frequency of 1090MHz, In the receiver design, noise figure, gain and receiver
the reference frequency is selected to be 10MHz obtained dynamic range are taken into consideration. The noise
from the crystal oscillator. The modulation module is figure of the receiver is determined by the insertion loss of
composed of an ASK modulator and a BPSK modulator. the limiter, filters and the noise figure of the LNA and
Connection to either the ASK modulator or the BPSK power amplifier. In the proposed receiver, ATF-38143
modulator is accomplished by using two SPDT transfer with low noise figure and high gain is selected as the LNA,
switches. When the microwave signal need to be ASK and the noise figure of the LNA is small while the gain is
modulated, the control gives a special signal to two SPDT large enough to practically neglect the influence of the
transfer switches and they are connected with “A” ports. bandpass filters and amplifier behind the LNA. Moreover,
Then input microwave signal transmits from the PLL an attenuator and a amplify are added to adapt to the large
module to ASK modulator, driver amplifier and high range of received signal.
power amplifier. As for BPSK modulation, it is similar to
ASK modulation and the two SPDT switches are
III. CIRCUIT BOARD AND METEL BLOCK DESIGN
connected with “B” ports.
The amplifier was designed as two stage amplifier for
A. Substrate Choice and Circuit Configuration Design
the transmitter with an output power of 125W. In design
of transmitter channel based on ADS-B system, the output The action of fabricating circuits with different
power need to be considered firstly. It is important to use functions and requirements on different substrates does
an appropriate driver stage amplifier which own of high good to save costs of production. To obtain low insertion
linearity and high efficiency before the last power loss, steady dielectric constant and appropriate dimension,
amplifier. Only if the input power for the last power Roger’s Duriod4350 substrate with a 3.5 dielectric
amplifier is enough, the power of 125W would be constant and 0.5mm thickness is used for the power
achieved. Secondly, the power consumption should be as amplifier circuits. Meanwhile, the circuits of the PLL
low as possible. In the proposed transceiver, a HBT module and ASK/BPSK modulators without rigid
amplifier is used as the pre-amplifier and a LDMOS requirements are fabricated on FR-4 substrate with a 4.6
power transistor is used as the last amplifier, and the dielectric constant and 0.5mm thickness.
power consumption of the whole transmitter measured at
last is lower than expected.
Connected to the last power amplifier is a directional
coupler. The coupled microwave signal power will be
transported to signal processing controller to detect faults
in the transmitter under work by detector, operational
amplifier and so on. Next is the circulator, placed in a
separate metal box. It is used as the protection circuit to
avoid possible reflecting damage to the transmitter due to
a high VSWR of the antenna connected to the circulator.
And it is also used to transform from transmitting mode to Fig. 3. Photograph of the transmitter.
receiving mode or the adverse.
B. Receiver
A block-diagram of the receiver based on ADS-B
system is shown in Fig. 2. The proposed receiver is
composed of a limiter, a low noise amplifier, band-pass
filters, an amplifier, a detector and so on. For the
microwave signal leaked from the circulator may damage
the LNA of the receiver, the limiter is used to lower down
power of the leakage signal to a safe lever for LNA Fig. 4. Photograph of the receiver.
immediately [7]. The band-pass filters before and after the
B. Metal Block Design
power amplifier in receiver are both expected to suppress
harmonic and spurious signals, which have a center The metal block of the transmitter front-end is divided
frequency of 1090 MHz and a passband from 1087MHz to to double deck, and it is similar to receiver front-end.
1093MHz. Taking transmitter module for example, the PLL circuits,
modulators and pre-amplifier are placed on the upper
cover plate, and the high power amplifier and bias circuits
are placed on the back of the metal block. The
arrangement is made convenient to regulate and test. At
the same time, the metal block is divided into many little
cavities with metal clapboard to prevent electromagnetic
coupling.
IV. TESTS OF THE T/R MODULE
The photograph of the transmitter proposed in this paper
is shown in Fig. 3, and that of receiver is shown in Fig. 4.
All the digital signals, used to control SPDT transfer
switches and modulators, and the primary power supplies
are given to the transmitter front-end by a tiny connector.
And the result given in Fig. 5 shows that the phase noise
of the PLL module is -91.29dBc/Hz at 10 KHz offset from
carrier of 1090MHz.
Fig. 5. Measured phase noise of the PLL module.
Fig. 6. Measured peak output pulse power of transmitter after
attenuator and insertion loss of lines.
After connected with a 30dB attenuator and coaxial
lines which have an insertion loss of 3dB, the peak output
pulse power is about 18.25dBm as shown in Fig. 5. That
means the peak output pulse power of transmitter is more
than 51dBm.
Meanwhile, the pulse rise time and the pulse drop time
of transmitter measured is 25n second and 22n second
respectively. And the delay time caused by some com-
ponents in circuit, such as amplifier, is small enough to
practically neglect the influence to the pulse signals
transmitted which has a pre-on time of 10us seconds
before available signals. And noise figure of the receiver
channel at 1090MHz measured is lower than 2.5dB.
V. CONCLUSION
A L-band T/R front-end with a transmitter and a
receiver fabricated separately has been proposed and
fabricated in this paper. The peak output power of the
transmitter is high to 125W while the power consumption
is 4.35W, which means the microwave signal transmitted
by the proposed front-end for ADS-B system can go more
farther than ordinary ones .
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