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A modular, low-cost, digital signal processor (DSP)-based lock-in card is described for measuring optical attenuation. By transferring the lock-in operation from the analog domain to the digital domain, the nonlinearities gain, and offset errors and drifts are virtually eliminated. The dual phase lock-in operation has been implemented on the low-cost DSP56002 evaluation module (DSP56002EVM) of Motorola that is widely used in audio signal processing. This evaluation board contains a 24 bit DSP56002 DSP and a stereo CD-quality audio codec that makes the board ideal for implementing signal processing algorithms. Due to the maximum sampling rate of the codec embedded on the DSP56002EVM, the frequencies of the processed signals must be below 20 kHz. This specification is enough for the most common applications in the field of optics, where low or very low frequency (<1 kHz) references are frequent. The software algorithm implementing the lock-in amplifier can be particularized by the user on the basis of the needed performances. The effects of finite word length in the digital filter implementation are analyzed. This analysis reveals that a 24 bit word length is not enough to ensure the filter stability and the required frequency response. To overcome this problem, the double precision multiply mode must be used. When the DSP56002 enters this mode, double precision 48 bit by 48 bit multiplication can be performed. The lock-in performance has been tested. The measured amplitude variations of the reference sine signal are about 0.003%, which do not affect the signal measurement. The lock-in behaves like a band-pass filter centered on the reference frequency whose bandwidth is related to the low-pass filter cutoff frequency. The measured frequency response shows that the lock-in performs as theoretically predicted. The DSP56002EVM can be used as a lock-in for electrical signals in stand-alone operation. Besides, we have designed a card that interconnects to the DSP56002EVM and allows the ensemble to act as an optical attenuation detector that measures optical losses over 70 dB. This range is similar to that achievable by commercially available optical loss testers and makes it suitable for optical return loss measurements of all kinds of commercially available optical connectors.

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