Predictive analog-to-digital converter for Fourier-transform spectrometers.

This paper proposes the use of predictive analog-to-digital converters (ADC) to handle dynamic range issues in Fourier-transform spectrometers. Several predictive approaches are proposed, and one is implemented experimentally to show that the technique works. A system was implemented with 16 bit (13 bits effective) ADCs and digital-to-analog converters (DACs) operated at 8 bits to provide a comparison basis. Measurements of a blackbody at 900 °C performed using the setup show a 13 bit effective performance, limited by the input noise of the data acquisition card.