Spurious free dynamic range for a digitizing array
The paper addresses the problem of improving the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) for digitization by use of sensor arrays. Nonlinearities in the analog-to-digital conversion process give rise to spurious signals (harmonics and intermodulation products) that limit the overall SFDR of the digitization process. When the signal of interest arises from a sensor, such as an antenna or hydrophone, the paper addresses the question of whether array processing (i.e., use of multiple sensors) can improve the resulting SFDR at the beamformer output. The paper argues that significant improvements can be obtained using linear, or more effectively, optimal (minimum variance distortionless response) beamforming.