MIL-STD-461G CS105: Conducted Susceptibility, Antenna Port, Cross-Modulation

MIL-STD-461G CS105 is a receiver front-end susceptibility requirement that applies from 30 Hz to 20 GHz only for receivers that normally process amplitude-modulated RF signals, as specified in the individual procurement specification. 

According to MIL-STD-461G CS105, the EUT shall not exhibit any undesired response, due to cross modulation, beyond specified tolerances when subjected to the limit requirement provided in the individual procurement specification.

This test procedure is used to determine the presence of cross-modulation products that may be caused by undesired signals at the EUT antenna ports.
 

Procedures

No test procedures are provided in the main body of this standard for this requirement. Because of the large variety of receiver designs being developed, the requirements for the specific operational characteristics of a receiver must be established before meaningful test procedures can be developed. Only general testing techniques are discussed in this appendix.

Cross modulation testing should be applied only to receiving subsystems such as receivers, RF amplifiers, transceivers and transponders which extract information from the amplitude modulation of a carrier.

Several receiver front-end characteristics must be known for proper testing for cross modulation responses. These characteristics generally should be determined by test. The maximum signal input that the receiver can tolerate without overload needs to be known to ensure that the test levels are reasonable. The bandpass characteristics of the receiver are important for determining frequencies near the receiver fundamental that will be excluded from test. Requirements for this test are generally expressed in terms of a relative degree of rejection by specifying the difference in level between potentially interfering signals and the established sensitivity of the receiver under test. Therefore, determination of the sensitivity of the receiver is a key portion of the test.

The basic concept with this test is to apply a modulated signal out-of-band to the receiver and to determine whether the modulation is transferred to an unmodulated signal at the receiver's tuned frequency resulting in an undesired response. There may be cases where the in-band signal needs to be modulated if the receiver characteristics so dictate. The level of the in-band signal is normally adjusted to be close to the receiver's sensitivity. The out-of-band signal is modulated with the modulation expected by the receiver. It is then swept over the appropriate frequency ranges while the receiver is monitored for unintended responses. Testing has typically been performed over a frequency range ± the receiver intermediate frequency (IF) centered on the receiver's tuned frequency. Figure A-15 shows a general setup for this test.

For receivers with front-end mixing and filtering in an antenna module, the test may need to be designed to be performed on a radiated basis. All signals would need to be radiated and assurances provided that any responses are due to the receiver and not caused by items in the test area. The EMITP would need to address antenna types, antenna locations, antenna polarizations and field measurement techniques. This test would probably need to be performed in an anechoic chamber.

For frequency hopping receivers, one possible approach is choose an fo within the hop set and set up the signals sources as described above. The performance of the receiver could then be evaluated as the receiver hops. If the frequency hopping receiver has a mode of operation using just one fixed frequency, this mode should also be tested.

It is important to verify that the signals appearing at the EUT antenna port are only the intended signals through the use of a measurement receiver as shown in Figure A-15. Damaged, corroded, and faulty components can cause signal distortion resulting in misleading results. Monitoring will also identify path losses caused by filters, attenuators, couplers, and cables.

Typical data for this test procedure for the EMITR are the sensitivity of the receiver, the levels of the signal sources, frequency ranges swept, operating frequencies of the receivers, and frequencies and threshold levels associated with any responses.

FIGURE A-15. CS105 General test setup.




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