Analytic signal demodulation of phase-modulated frequency-chirped signals

Both interferometers and frequency-modulated (FM) radios create sinusoidal signals with phase information that must be recovered. Often these two applications use narrow band signals but some applications create signals with a large bandwidth. For example, accelerated mirrors in an interferometer naturally create a chirped frequency that linearly increases with time. Chirped carriers are also used for spread-spectrum, FM transmission to reduce interference or avoid detection. In both applications, it is important to recover the underlying phase modulations that are superimposed on the chirped carrier. A common way to treat a chirped waveform is to fit zero crossings of the signal. For lower signal-to-noise applications, however, it is helpful to have a technique that utilizes data over the entire waveform (not just at zero crossings). We present a technique called analytic signal demodulation (ASD), which employs a complex heterodyne of the analytic signal to fully demodulate the chirped waveform. ASD has a much higher sensitivity for recovering phase information than is possible using a chirp demodulation on the raw data. This paper introduces a phase residual function, R(θ), that forms an analytic signal and provides a complex demodulation from the received signal in one step. The function defines a phase residual at each point on the chirped waveform, not just at the zero crossings. ASD allows sensitive detection of phase-modulated signals with a very small modulation index (much less than 0.01) that would otherwise be swamped by noise if the raw signal were complex demodulated. The mathematics used to analyze a phase-modulated chirped signal is quite general and can easily be extended for frequency profiles more complicated than a simple chirp.