Dynamic range and linearity trade-off in detectors for interferometric radiometers

Abstract

The dynamic range and error performance of the diode power detector used to denormalise the digital correlations in interferometric radiometers is analysed by means of a second-order model of the diode response. This gives an easy method to establish system dynamic range as a trade-off between both the error contribution of measurement uncertainty and diode nonlinearity. The method is illustrated by analysing the power measurement system of the MIRAS-SMOS instrument.