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This paper presents a low-voltage low-power high-speed superregenerative receiver operating in the 2.4-GHz industrial-scientific-medical band. The receiver uses an architecture in which, thanks to the presence of a phase-locked loop, the quench oscillator is operated synchronously with the received data at a quench frequency equal to the data rate. This mode of operation has several benefits. Firstly, the traditional problem of poor selectivity in this type of receiver is to a large extent overcome. Secondly, considerably higher data rates can be achieved than with classical receivers. Thirdly, the bit envelope can be matched to the superregenerative oscillator, which improves sensitivity. The receiver includes an RF front end optimized to support high quench frequencies at low supply voltages, responding to today's increasing demand for high speed and low power consumption. The prototype implemented is very simple and achieves a data rate of 11 Mb/s with a current consumption of 1.75 mA at a supply voltage of 1.2 V-an excellent tradeoff between cost, performance, and power consumption.

Abstract-Thispaper describes a bit-synchronous superregenerative receiver suitable for BPSK demodulation. The output of the superregenerative oscillator (SRO), which reproduces the phase information of the input signal, is directly sampled by a D flip flop clocked by a signal derived from the quench waveform. Analytical background on the response of the SRO to a BPSK modulated input is presented. A PSpice macromodel of the receiver is also provided, allowing simulation in the linear and logarithmic modes of operation. Simulation results confirm the feasibility of the described approach. Finally, a proof-of-concept superregenerative receiver, capable of receiving a BPSK modulated carrier at 27 MHz with preliminary experimental results is presented. The measured sensitivity of this receiver is -99.5 dBm for a bit error rate of 10 -3 .

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Despite their simplicity, analysis and design of superregenerative oscillators is often still based on approximations which provide limited insight into its behavior. In this paper we investigate the superregenerative oscillator in the linear and logarithmic operation modes without any approximations. A frequency-domain formulation allows us to efficiently compute the relevant waveforms both in the time and in the frequency domains. One of the main results is the ability to efficiently predict the exact envelope and the instantaneous phase and frequency of the generated waveforms for sinusoidal input signals. The formulation allows taking into account different amplitude-limiting nonlinearities that are responsible for the logarithmic response. We analyze different superregenerative oscillator designs under various operating conditions. We also provide a comparison of the results with those obtained with other techniques.

Abstract-In this paper we present a description and experimental verification of a superregenerative receiver (SR) for QPSK signals. Exploiting the fact that a conventional SR generates pulses which preserve the input phase information, we take N 1-bit samples of each generated pulse. A suitable choice of the sampling frequency gives as a result a bit vector containing a sub-sampled version of each PSK pulse. Extremely simple digital processing of the vectors from two consecutive pulses allows symbol decision, together with information on signal quality and frequency displacements. Although presented for the QPSK case, the principle may be applied to the M-PSK case with obvious changes. Experimental results on a 20 kbit/s proof-of concept receiver in the 27 MHz band, achieving a sensitivity of −103 dBm, with an FPGA-based implementation of the digital part, validate the proposed approach.

In this paper we investigate the possibilities of narrowband FSK detection using a superregenerative (SR) receiver. Previous SR FM demodulation techniques rely on detecting the amplitude variations caused by the different frequencies involved in FSK modulation. However, this requires relatively high frequency deviations because the frequency response of SR receivers is not very selective. In this paper we take a different approach, exploiting the distinct phase trajectories of FSK modulations resulting from the transmitted data. The well-known fact that the SR oscillator response preserves the phase information of the received signal is successfully exploited to allow the detection of several FSK modulations. These include the special case of MSK, opening the way to applying the SR principle to several communication standards, such as IEEE 802.15.4. The key ideas for symbol synchronization are also presented. Experimental results on a 10 kbit/s proof-of-concept MSK receiver, achieving a sensitivity better than 114 dBm in the HF band, validate the proposed approach.

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