Incoherent Scatter Power Measurements; a Comparison of Various Techniques

The straightforward way to determine the mean scattered power is to square‐law detect the incoming signal and average the results. This is also the optimum technique from a statistical point of view. Various other detection schemes are only slightly inferior, however, and may be substantially more convenient when the entire signal processing problem is considered. This paper examines the pros and cons of a number of these possibilities.