Advantages of Superheterodyne Receiver | disadvantages of heterodyne Receiver

This page covers Advantages and Disadvantages of Superheterodyne receiver architecture. It mentions benefits or advantages of superheterodyne receiver and drawbacks or disadvantages of superheterodyne receiver.

What is Superheterodyne receiver?

Introduction:
• Heterodyne receiver uses single RF mixer for conversion of modulated RF signal to baseband I/Q signals.
• Superheterodyne receiver uses dual RF mixers for conversion of modulated RF signal to baseband I/Q signals.

Heterodyne and Superheterodyne receiver types use different LO (Local Oscillator) frequency than received signal frequency.

The figure-1 depicts Heterodyne receiver architecture. Here f_IF = f_RF - f_LO
Refer RF Mixer basics>> and RF Mixer tutorial to understand up conversion and down conversion.

The figure-2 depicts Superheterodyne receiver architecture.
Here Here f_IF1 = f_RF - f_LO1 ...equation-1 at stage-I
Here f_IF2 = f_IF1 - f_LO2 ...equation-2 at stage-II
The modulated f_IF2 is processed to achieve baseband I/Q signals at zero frequency.
Refer Homodyne Vs Heterodyne Receiver>>.

Benefits or advantages of Superheterodyne Receiver

Following are the benefits or advantages of superheterodyne Receiver and heterodyne receiver architecture types:
➨As it converts high frequency to low frequency, all processing takes place at lower frequencies. The devices are cheaper at such lower frequencies compare to higher frequencies.
➨It is easy to filter IF signal compare to RF signal.
➨It offers better sensitivity compare to homodyne receiver architecture.
➨Heterodyne uses single conversion and Superheterodyne uses double conversion. The Superheterodyne receiver prevents image noise foldover due to use of two IF frequencies before conversion to baseband.

Drawbacks or disadvantages of Superheterodyne Receiver

Following are the disadvantages of superheterodyne Receiver and heterodyne receiver architecture types:
➨It requires additional LOs (Local Oscillators) and RF Mixers to convert signal from RF to IF before conversion to baseband. This increases cost of overall receiver.
➨Moreover filters are also needed to remove any LO leakage as well as undesired frequency components to prevent image frequencies. This also increases cost as well as complexity of the receiver.

Also refer advantages and disadvantages of Homodyne receiver >>.

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