PHASE COHERENT SOURCES

UFS-18

Elcom’s UFS family of microwave synthesizers meets today’s most demanding testing needs found in the laboratory, on production lines, and in system development and maintenance. The UFS delivers an unsurpassed combination of ultra fast switching speed, extremely low phase noise, low spurious, and wide frequency tuning range with small frequency step size. The basic advanced direct analog frequency synthesizer architecture provides for ultra fast switching speeds. This is complemented by a high speed direct digital synthesizer (DDS) subsystem implemented within the fastest available COTS FPGA. The DDS subsystem provides for small frequency step size with low spurious. Proprietary fixed frequency, low-phase noise PLL technology for the internal fixed frequency sources, along with the lowest phase noise VHF OCXO commercially available, yields extremely low phase noise.

Application of the latest semiconductor technologies for microwave and digital circuitry reduces parts count and reduces power dissipation, leading to high system MTBF. The standard configuration for the UFS is a rack-mount instrument, however, its modular internal layout facilitates configuration of the system to meet a limitless range of special custom synthesizer requirements for packaging and performance.

APPLICATIONS: EW Simulation, Frequency Agile Radar, 
ATE Systems, SIGINT, Radar Cross Section

FEATURES

  • 300 MHz to 18.0 GHz coverage with 1 Hz tuning resolution 
and +10 dBm output level
  • Spurious 65 dBc
  • 250 nanosecond switching speed
  • Parallel BCD interface for high speed
  • Ability to lock to an external 10 MHz and/or 100MHz reference, 
and exact synchronization to the external reference. Note that 
many competitive designs exhibit a synchronization error due to 
digital round-off. This makes for an output frequency error anywhere 
from a fraction of one Hz to several Hz when locked to an external reference.

AIRBORNE SIMULATION PLATFORMS

  • Our UFS products are used extensively throughout the world in ATE systems for testing of LRU’s and EW Simulation Systems used by Military Aircraft.
  • Our synthesizers can be found in applications supporting the operational mission performance of the F-15, F-16, F-18, E2D, F-22, F-35 and B-2.
  • Additionally we also manufacture other instrumentation used in the testing requirements of the B-52.

OPTIONAL FEATURES AVAILABLE

The architecture of the UFS has been developed to provide various high-level as well as basic optional functions. These include:

  • Full band phase coherency. For some applications, this feature allows one synthesizer to serve the role of multiple units, providing a major reduction in cost of ownership.
  • 3 GHz IF Loop. The user can apply I/Q or vector modulation in line with this signal to convert the UFS into a synthesized up/down converter with little or no degradation in performance over the entire operating frequency. IF bandwidths are available up to +/- 100MHz. See Option Bulletin OPT 113B for details.
  • Fast externally controlled digital attenuator, 0-30 dB in 0.5 dB steps
  • Pulse modulation