Gaël OUSSET

Abstract: One of the challenge of this PhD is to demodulate RF signals while keeping low power consumption, a good robustness and preserving the required EM compatibility for operating RF signals. This thesis proposes to analyze the potential of non-uniform sampling schemes on RF modulated signals. Standard digital solutions for demodulating signals uses Nyquist’s analog-to-digital converters (based on the Shannon theorem). In order to reduce the power consumption at least by a factor of 10, new approaches need to be explored. This thesis will use event-based techniques and a sparse analog-to-digital conversion in order to reduce the computational load. Such an approach is particularly efficient when coupled to event-driven circuits, also known as asynchronous circuits.
The PhD candidate will be in charge of developing dedicated demodulation techniques based on several non-uniform sampling schemes in order to reduce the number of the necessary digital operations. The main task consists in exploring is a dedicated analog-to-digital conversion and how to couple this to RF functions such mixers, filters, etc. The PhD candidate could benefit from the previous works already done at TIMA and ST on digital mixers, NFC and asynchronous circuit design.