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Overview
This tutorial is part of the National Instruments Measurement Fundamentals series. Each tutorial in this series teaches you a specific topic of common measurement applications by explaining the theory and giving practical examples. This tutorial covers an introduction to RF, wireless, and high-frequency signals and systems. For the complete list of tutorials, return to the NI Measurement Fundamentals Main page, or for more RF tutorials, refer to the NI RF Fundamentals Main subpage.
Table of Contents
1. Marconi and the First Wireless Transmissions 2. What is RF? 3. Why Operate at Higher Frequencies? 4. Frequency Shifting through Frequency Mixing 5. Looking for more RF Basics? 6. Relevant NI Products 7. Conclusions
2. What is RF?
RF itself has become synonymous with wireless and high-frequency signals, describing anything from AM radio between 535 kHz and 1605 kHz to computer local area networks (LANs) at 2.4 GHz. However, RF has traditionally defined frequencies from a few kHz to roughly 1 GHz. If one considers microwave frequencies as RF, this range extends to 300 GHz. The following two tables outline the various nomenclatures for the frequency bands. The third table outlines some of the applications at each of the various frequency bands.
Table 1 shows a relationship between frequency (f) and wavelength (). A wave or sinusoid can be completely described by either its frequency or its wavelength. They are inversely proportional to each other and related to the speed of light through a particular medium. The relationship in a vacuum is shown in the following equation:
where c is the speed of light. As frequency increases, wavelength decreases. For reference, a 1 GHz wave has a wavelength of roughly 1 foot, and a 100 MHz wave has a wavelength of roughly 10 feet.
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RF measurement methodology can generally be divided into three major categories: spectral analysis, vector analysis, and network analysis. Spectrum analyzers, which provide basic measurement capabilities, are the most popular type of RF instrument in many general-purpose applications. Specifically, using a spectrum analyzer you can view power-vs-frequency information, and can sometimes demodulate analog formats, such as amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM), and phase modulation (PM). Vector instruments include vector or real-time signal analyzers and generators. These instruments analyze and generate broadband waveforms, and capture time, frequency, phase, and power information from signals of interest. These instruments are much more powerful than spectrum analyzers and offer excellent modulation control and signal analysis. Network analyzers, on the other hand, are typically used for making S-parameter measurements and other characterization measurements on RF or high-frequency components. Network analyzers are instruments that correlate both the generation and
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measurements on RF or high-frequency components. Network analyzers are instruments that correlate both the generation and analysis on multiple channels but at a much higher price than spectrum analyzers and vector signal generators/analyzers.
Therefore, by beating two sine waves against each other, you get both sum and difference frequencies. You can shift an entire signal to a new frequency range (either up or down in spectrum) by selecting the appropriate value of . In addition, any signal can be represented as the sum of sinusoidal signals of different
frequencies. Thus, shifting a signal simply applies the multiplication to all its sinusoidal components.
Figure 1: Frequency Shifting the Human Audible Range to the Cellular Range NOTE: The process of taking audible sound and transmitting over cellular frequencies (850 MHz) includes more than simply mixing. To make the signal more resistant to noise and other impairments, the process includes encoding and modulating the data as well as perhaps using multiple stages of mixing instead of a single stage.
6. Relevant NI Products
Customers interested in this topic were also interested in the following NI products: NI RF & Communications Platform NI 5663 6.6 GHz RF Vector Signal Analyzer NI 5673 6.6 GHz RF Vector Signal Generator NI 5660 2.7 GHz RF Vector Signal Analyzer NI 5671 2.7 GHz RF Vector Signal Generator NI RF Switch Hardware NI Spectral Measurements Toolkit Software NI Modulation Toolkit Software
7. Conclusions
This document is meant to provide a brief overview and introduction to RF, wireless, and high-frequency signals. Additional information can be found in Teaching and Research Resources for RF and Communications. For the complete list of tutorials, return to the NI Measurement Fundamentals Main page or for more RF tutorials refer to the NI RF Fundamentals Main subpage.
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