Designed for astronomy, physics applications and environmental measurements requiring frequency domain signal processing, the card allows observation of phenomena never observed before with previous instruments making it a big step forward in terms of linearity, dynamic range and spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) measurements. While providing continuous real-time FFT at full sampling rate, this option also enables spectra accumulation capability, a key requirement for radio-astronomy.

With DC up to 2 GHz bandwidth nominal, the card allows users to convert even low frequencies of around 0 Hz not observable with an AC front-end; moreover, AC coupling would introduce BF noise, whereas DC coupling provides measurement fidelity.

By increasing the resolution from 8- to 12-bit, this option provides computation of a 32K points FFT for single or dual channels. As a result of its low-noise capabilities, the card allows users to detect phenomena difficult to observe, such as tilted fibers in solar burst. Additionally, in a controlled environment, this application can run at altitude of 15,000 feet.

“Thanks to a remarkable dynamic range, this new fast Fourier transform version allows performance of sensitive observations in highly interfered environment,” said C. Monstein, Radio Engineer at Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zürich.

“With 12-bit resolution, the card enables observation of -110 dBm signals in -30 dBm interfered spectrum. Even in very strong FM band we can still see the solar radio burst structure without cross-modulation or ghosts, which wasn’t possible before with previous instruments at ETH, such as Phoenix-generations, Argos, Callisto, and so forth. Keysight’s on-going collaboration with the institute enables continuous technological improvements.”

This application option comes with a dedicated FFT spectrometer graphic user interface, allowing fast initial start-up, display and export of the acquired FFT data.