intermediate frequency (IF)

An intermediate frequency (IF) is a frequency to which a carrier frequency is shifted as an intermediate step in transmission or reception.[1] The intermediate frequency is created by mixing the carrier signal with a local oscillator signal in a process called heterodyning, resulting in a signal at the difference or beat frequency.

Reasons for using IF[edit]

Intermediate frequencies are used for three general reasons. At very high (gigahertz) frequencies, signal processing circuitry performs poorly. Active devices such as transistors cannot deliver much amplification (gain).[1][2] Ordinary circuits using capacitors and inductors must be replaced with cumbersome high frequency techniques such as striplines and waveguides. So a high frequency signal is converted to a lower IF for more convenient processing. For example, in satellite dishes, the microwave downlink signal received by the dish is converted to a much lower IF at the dish, to allow a relatively inexpensive coaxial cable to carry the signal to the receiver inside the building. Bringing the signal in at the original microwave frequency would require an expensive waveguide. A second reason, in receivers that can be tuned to different frequencies, is to convert the various different frequencies of the stations to a common frequency for processing. It is difficult to build amplifiers, filters, and detectors that can be tuned to different frequencies, but easy to build tunable oscillators. Superheterodyne receivers tune in different frequencies by adjusting the frequency of the local oscillator on the input stage, and all processing after that is done at the same fixed frequency, the IF. Without using an IF, all the complicated filters and detectors in a radio or television would have to be tuned in unison each time the frequency was changed, as was necessary in the early tuned radio frequency receivers. The main reason for using an intermediate frequency is to improve frequency selectivity.[1] In communication circuits, a very common task is to separate out or extract signals or components of a signal that are close together in frequency. This is called filtering. Some examples are, picking up a radio station among several that are close in frequency, or extracting the chrominance subcarrier from a TV signal. With all known filtering techniques the filter's bandwidth increases proportionately with the frequency. So a narrower bandwidth and more selectivity can be achieved by converting the signal to a lower IF and performing the filtering at that frequency.

Modulator and demodulator[edit]

A digital modulator transforms a digital stream into a radio signal on Intermediate frequency (IF). A modulator is generally a much simpler device than a demodulator, because it doesn't have to recover symbol and carrier frequencies. A demodulator is one of the most important parts of the receiver. The exact structure of the demodulator is defined by a modulation type. However, the fundamental concepts are similar. Moreover, it is possible to develop a demodulator which can process signals with different modulation types. Digital demodulation implies that a symbol clock (and, in most cases, an intermediate frequency generator) at the receiving side have to be synchronous with those at the transmitting side. This is achieved by the following two circuits: timing recovery circuit, determining the borders of symbols; carrier recovery circuit, which determines the actual meaning of each symbol. There are modulation types (like frequency shift keying) that can be demodulated without carrier recovery (noncoherent demodulation) but this method is generally worse. There are also additional components in the demodulator such as the Intersymbol interference equalizer. If the analog signal was digitized without a four-quadrant multiplier, the complex envelope has to be calculated by a digital complex mixer. Sometimes a digital automatic gain control circuit is implemented in the demodulator.

FEC coding[edit]
Error correction techniques are essential for satellite communications, because, due to satellite's limited power a signal to noise ratio at the receiver is usually rather poor. Error correction works by adding an artificial redundancy to a data stream at the transmitting side, and using this redundancy to correct errors caused by noise and interference. A FEC encoder applies an error correction code to the digital stream, adding redundancy. A FEC decoder decodes the Forward error correction code that is used in the specific signal. For example, the Digital Video Broadcasting standard defines a concatenated code consisting of inner convolutional (standard NASA code, punctured, with rates , , , ,

), interleaving and outer Reed-Solomon code (block length: 204 bytes, information block: 188 bytes, can correct up to 8 bytes in the block).