Signal analyzer

It employs digital techniques to extract useful information that is carried by an electrical signal.

Today’s high-frequency signal analyzers achieve good performance by optimizing both the analog front end and the digital back end.

The digitizing process typically involves in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) or complex sampling so that all characteristics of the signal are preserved, as opposed to the magnitude-only processing of a spectrum analyzer.

The sampling rate of the digitizing process may be varied in relation to the frequency span under consideration or (more typically) the signal may be digitally resampled.

A signal analyzer can be viewed as a measurement platform, with operations such as spectrum analysis (including phase noise, power, and distortion) and vector signal analysis (including demodulation or modulation quality analysis) performed as measurement applications.