Hardware platform of Analog-to-Information converter using Non Uniform Wavelet Bandpass Sampling for RF signal activity detection

Feature extraction from wideband radio-frequency (RF) signals, such as spectrum sensing and modulation identification finds use in a growing number of applications as it enhances RF transceivers with cognitive abilities. Near RF sensor computing could be performed in an energy-efficient manner thanks to Compressive sensing (CS)-based analog-to-information (A2I) converters. Recently we introduced a novel A2I architecture, referred to as non-uniform wavelet bandpass sampling (NUWBS). In this paper we present the first hardware platform based on an ASIC solution performing NUWBS acquisition. Each compressive measurement requires 225 pJ/meas for an RF signal in the GHz range. We use this platform to measure an experimental transition graph cut and benchmark with a theoretical approach with a sparsity degree up to 12%.