Boxcar averager
A boxcar averager, gated integrator or boxcar integrator is an electronic test instrument that integrates the signal input voltage after a defined waiting time (trigger delay) over a specified period of time (gate width) and then averages over multiple integration results (samples) – for a mathematical description see boxcar function. The main purpose of this measurement technique is to improve signal to noise ratio in pulsed experiments with often low duty cycle by the following three mechanisms: 1) signal integration acts as a first averaging step that strongly suppresses noise components with a frequency of the reciprocal gate width and higher, 2) time-domain based selection of signal parts that actually carry information of interest and neglect of all signal parts where only noise is present, and 3) averaging over a defined number of periods provides low-pass filtering and convenient adjustment of time resolution.