Research and application of multistage data acquisition technology featuring high speed and large dynamic range

Scientific research and major projects such as deep space exploration applications and simulated nuclear explosions often require the testing of high dynamic range, high bandwidth and complex electronic signals. Battlefield environments generate ultra-fast transient signals that require real-time capture to obtain the important information carried by these signals. Increasing the sampling rate and dynamic range is the key to the real-time capture of wideband complex signals and the core device used for signal acquisition is the analog-to-digital converter (ADC). However, due to the limitations of the integrated circuit manufacturing process, ADC resolution and sampling rate are always in contention. In this paper, we propose a system-level design for a multistage acquisition system, establish a mathematical model and analyze theoretically how to improve the structure. We then implement a high-speed, high-precision and large dynamic range acquisition system based on our proposed multistage structure. Finally, we test the proposed structure and verify that it can maintain a dynamic range of 90 dB or more at a sampling rate of 1 GSPS.