Abstract:
An analog system for processing modulated reflected energy and producing a squarewave output representative of coded information causing the modulation is described. The modulation can be caused by reflecting energy from a segmented label coded by varying the widths of segments having different energy reflectives to define logic 1''s and 0''s. In such a usage, the inventive system produces a squarewave with maximum and minimum amplitudes determined by the segment reflectives and pulse widths proportional to the segment widths. The inventive system provides control of the pulse amplitudes and widths in the presence of noise. The inventive system also provides automatic gain control to compensate for variations in the output energy source, detector variations, power variations, and other internal system variations.