Research Projects

This proposal aims to design and demonstrate a low-cost, lightweight, USB-controlled RF synthesizer driven by a host computer. This synthesizer is essential in communications transceivers, test and measurement equipment, and network analyzers. Standard commercially available bench-top RF sources are bulky and have reduced portability and higher end user costs. The main research challenge is to achieve high signal integrity, suppressing higher order harmonics with minimal phase noise. The central research goal is to design a bandpass filter with a narrow passband, whose center frequency can be tuned over a wide bandwidth. The proposed system will consist of a microcontroller (MCU) with a built-in USB controller, programmed by the user's host PC via USB to control a monolithic PLL with integrated VCO. The tuning control is done by the microcontroler through a D/A converter. All subsystems except the host PC are designed and integrated on a single printed circuit board (PCB). The synthesizer is expected to generate a square wave and a sine wave. The synthesizers (one up to 6GHz and the other up to 30GHz) are expected to be used as reference sources in transceivers for 5G carrier bands in India. These synthesizers are expected to pave the way for a low-cost, indigenous computer-controlled RF synthesizer made in India, making it viable for the industry and academia.