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  Apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture for processing an electromagnetic waveThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070103236. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The invention relates generally to electromagnetic processing, and more particularly to the attenuation or amplification of electromagnetic waves. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The controlled attenuation or amplification of electromagnetic waves has many uses. For example, intelligence may be conveyed along a wave by attenuating and/or amplifying ("modifying") electromagnetic wave characteristics, such as is seen when modulating amplitude, frequency or phase of an electrical current or radio frequency (RF) wave to transmit data. As another example, power may be conveyed along a wave in a controlled fashion by attenuating and/or amplifying electromagnetic wave characteristics, such as is seen when modulating voltage or current in a circuit. Moreover, the uses may be combined, such as when intelligence may be conveyed through a wave by modifying power characteristics. [0003] Electromagnetic wave characteristic modification may be accomplished through digital or analog techniques. For instance, a wave may be switched off, and thus the wave attenuated completely; the voltage of a wave may be increased, such as by a factor of 1.5, and thus the wave regulated; etc. Digital and analog attenuation and/or amplification may also be combined, that is, the same wave may be subject to various types of digital and/or analog attenuation and/or amplification within a system in order to accomplish desired tasks. [0004] Electromagnetic waves have, until fairly recently, been modified using analog techniques, and there had been no attempt to isolate discrete wave characteristics such as current, voltage and the like and modify those characteristics in order to modify the wave itself. Recently, however, wave modification techniques have become digitized, so that characteristics of the wave can be isolated and modified directly in order to achieve a desired result. Digitization has become desirable because it usually provides increased precision and flexibility in wave modification while consuming less power than previous methods. [0005] Using digitization to process electromagnetic wave, such as in the amplification of a wave, has provided improved linearity of the processed wave, while at the same time also improving the efficiency of the process by reducing power consumption. Digitization also allows for the reduction of noise in the processed wave through the use of digital based techniques that are not available in analog processing systems. [0006] Accordingly, it would be helpful to the art of electromagnetic wave modification if apparatus, methods, and articles of manufacture were provided that utilize digital techniques in the processing of electromagnetic waves. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0007] Embodiments of the present invention include apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture for generating and/or modifying electromagnetic waves. In one embodiment, a method of processing an electromagnetic wave comprises regulating at least two independently controllable current sources with a signal determined from at least one characteristic of the electromagnetic wave to generate a processed electromagnetic wave from at least one of the independently controllable current sources. In another embodiment, an electromagnetic wave processor comprises a plurality of independently controllable current sources connected to use a signal determined from at least one characteristic of an electromagnetic wave. The signal is input to the plurality of independently controllable current sources to generate a processed electromagnetic wave from at least one of the independently controllable current sources. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0008] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of a wave processor. [0009] FIG. 2. is a diagram illustrating exemplary embodiments of a control circuit for a wave processor [0010] FIG. 3 is a chart illustrating states of a wave over time. [0011] FIGS. 4 (a)-(c) are diagrams illustrating the operation of embodiments of a segmented wave processor. DETAILED DESCRIPTION [0012] Embodiments of the invention include apparatus, methods and articles of manufacture for wave or signal processing. The term "signal" as used herein should be broadly construed to include any manner of conveying data from one place to another, such as, for example, an electric current or electromagnetic field, including without limitation, a direct current that is switched on and off or an alternating-current or electromagnetic carrier that contains one or more data streams. Data, for example, may be superimposed on a carrier current or wave by means of modulation, which may be accomplished in analog or digital form. The term "data" as used herein should also be broadly construed to comprise any type of intelligence or other information, such as, for example and without limitation, audio, voice, text and/or video, etc. [0013] In an exemplary embodiment, a wave may be divided into two component characteristics. This wave may be an input wave, for example, to an electromagnetic signal transmitter, receiver, or transceiver. As shown in FIG. 1, the input wave may be divided into a magnitude component m comprising magnitude characteristics of the input wave over a defined period and a phase component p, comprising phase characteristics of the input wave over the same period. [0014] The manner in which the input wave is divided is not particularly limited. One exemplary manner in which this may be accomplished is to provide input wave a to a digital signal processor, which digitizes the wave, such as by the use of rectangular coordinates or I,Q data. A rectangular to polar converter then receives the I,Q data and translates it into polar coordinates. [0015] It should be noted that, in other embodiments, a different digitized representation of a wave may be provided if desired. While the invention is described herein in connection with an embodiment using a digitized wave with polar data, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the invention is not limited thereto and may use any digital or analog waveform, or combination thereof. [0016] An output wave b is shown after processing by a preferred embodiment. It should be noted that the time period in this and other embodiments is as desired. For example, embodiments may derive magnitude and phase characteristics of the wave over various time periods in order to maximize resolution of the wave, maximize speed of operation, etc. These time periods may be dynamically determined as well in various embodiments so that they change during operation. In the preferred embodiments, the division of the input wave is synchronized, in order to maximize accuracy of output and minimize any distortion. [0017] FIG. 1 shows an exemplary embodiment of a wave processor. The amplitude characteristics of the original input wave may be modulated along path m into digital pulses comprising a digital word quantized into bits B1 to Bn, with a Most Significant Bit ("MSB") to Least Significant Bit ("LSB"). It should be noted in FIG. 2 that, for ease of viewing the figure, the control component lines are consolidated into a single path m leading into control components 22a-n. However, in the embodiment, and as further described below, the control component lines are not consolidated and instead feed into the control components individually. The digital word may be as of varying lengths in various embodiments. In general, the longer the word the greater the accuracy of reproduction ("resolution") of the input wave. The digital word provides instruction signals for processing of the wave, such as for attenuation and/or amplification, in manner to be described further below. Of course, as is described further below, in other embodiments, a differently composed digital word may be used, as well as other types of derivation of amplitude or other wave characteristics. [0018] The phase characteristic component of input wave a travels along path p, where it is modulated onto a carrier wave, preferably an RF signal. This wave preferably has a constant envelope, i.e., it has no amplitude variations, yet it has phase characteristic information of the original input wave, and passes to wave processor 25. The wave, which has been split among individual driver lines, is then fed into current sources 21a-n, and will serve to potentially drive current sources 21a-n, as is further described below. In other embodiments, as further described below, other sources of other wave characteristics may be used. [0019] It should be noted that, in the present embodiment, transistors maybe used as current sources 21a-n. Additionally, in other embodiments, one or more transistors segmented appropriately may be used as current sources 21a-n. The current sources 21a-n in one preferred embodiment must not be configured to behave like voltage sources, which will interfere with the desired current combining of the sources. Continue reading... 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