Precision test equipment manufacturer Signal Hound has announced a new licensed Spike software measurement tool kit that adds comprehensive pulse and radar signal analysis for both commercial and defense applications. Delivered as a licensed option for Spike and fully compatible with Signal Hound’s wideband receivers including the PCR4200 multi-channel receiver, the new Pulse Analysis Tool Kit enables system designers and field users to perform a broad range of pulse and radar measurements needed for radar-system testing, transmitter troubleshooting, transient/spurious analysis and electronic intelligence use cases.
“Engineers building and validating radar and pulse-based systems need fast, reliable tools that work in the lab and the field,” said AJ Montgomery, senior software engineer at Signal Hound. “This licensed Spike measurement tool kit brings deep pulse insight — automatic pulse-type detection, long-duration pulse memory, deinterleaving and correlation testing — into a single package so teams can validate system-level performance, diagnose faults and accelerate development.”
Source: Signal Hound
The new tool kit is compatible with all Signal Hound wideband receivers, supporting analysis bandwidths up to 160 MHz and frequencies up to 43.5 GHz. It automatically detects and characterizes CW, linear chirp and Barker-sequence pulses, and stores more than 50,000 pulses in deep memory to enable trend and history analysis over long capture intervals. Users can view detailed, configurable pulse-performance metrics aligned with IEEE 181 — such as pulse width, PRI, rise/fall time, overshoot and ripple.
With the enhanced pulse analysis options, Spike’s interface offers a wide selection of plots and displays including AM/FM/PM versus time, spectrum, waterfall, histograms, pulse tables, pulse history, pulse compression and autocorrelation. The Pulse Analysis license also supports deinterleaving to classify pulses from up to five unique emitters with automatic emitter detection and classification and provides pulse correlation/compression testing to compare measured data against reference waveforms and reveal signals below normal trigger thresholds.
Pulse Analysis Tool Kit features:
- Automatically detect and characterize CW, linear chirp, barker sequences pulse types
- Deep pulse memory of more than 50,000 pulses
- Display detailed, configurable, pulse performance metrics
- Available plots include AM/FM/PM versus time, spectrum, waterfall, histograms and more
- Deinterleaving functions
- Pulse correlation and compression testing
By introducing this new licensed measurement tool kit, Signal Hound extends Spike’s value for radar system designers, test engineers and field operators who require advanced pulse analysis without the cost and complexity of traditional bench systems. The Pulse Analysis Tool Kit is available as a licensed option in the latest Spike release (version 4.0.15).
