METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR EQUALIZATION OF A SIGNAL ACQUISTION SYSTEM

In a signal acquisition system in accordance with the principles of the present invention, a digital signal acquisition system includes a front end, an equalizer and an output system. The front end typically includes an input amplifier and may include one or more preamplifiers, and any one of various input probes. The probes may be directed toward different applications, that is, voltage probes or current probes, for example, and may include preamplifiers that adjust the range of input signals. The output of the probe is typically routed to an input amplifier, which may include various filters and/other signal conditioning circuitry. The system also includes an analog to digital converter that is arranged to receive a conditioned analog input signal from the input amplifier. The analog to digital converter converts the conditioned analog input signal to digitized input signal. The equalizer accepts the digitized input signal and filters the signal to produce a signal that has been compensated for inadequacies in the signal acquisition system's front end. Coefficients for the equalizer are determined and stored within the system during a calibration process. The calibration process employs a model signal acquisition system and the target signal acquisition system to determine a transfer function difference between the systems and uses this difference to compute the equalization coefficients.