About Using ESP32 as an ADC/Using ESP32 as an MCU communicating with an ADC

[brn100]

Dear all,

In my project, I want to take 4 analog RF inputs with different frequency bands(‘800 MHz’: 791–821 MHz, ‘900 MHz’: 925–960 MHz, ‘1800 MHz’: 1805–1880 MHz, ‘3600 MHz’: 3550–3700 MHz) and convert them into a digital value using an ADC. At that moment, I am using ADS1015 which is connected to an Arduino in order to communicate and interfacing is made using Arduino. However, the problem is the data rate of ADS1015 can go up to 3.3 kSPS which is not enough for my application. Therefore, I am looking for alternative ADC models and what I specifically want is to have an ADC with (at least) four inputs and has a sampling rate of 100 kSPS at least. Moreover, as I want to get rid of Arduino on my board design, I want to use another MCU for communicating with the ADC. Resolution is not so important, but at least a 10-bit resolution is fine.

While I was checking for an ADC with those requirements and I saw that ESP32 is capable of doing what I want. It has a sampling rate that can reach 100 kSPS, it uses SPI communication and it can be programmed by using Arduino. However, what I saw from some websites is that ESP32 has some issues during the conversions, for instance, the non-linear behavior of ESP32, which offers a very low resolution.

I have to ask several questions:

1)Do you recommend using ESP32 as an ADC in my design which takes some RF inputs with high frequency?
2)Is it possible to replace Arduino with ESP32 and use it with an ADC that supports I2C or SPI communication(e.g ADS1015 which supports I2C or MCP3204 which supports SPI and here, ESP32 will be used as the MCU unit)? Do you recommend any other ADC's that can work with ESP32 properly and has the specific attributions that I mentioned above(sampling rate at least 100 kSPS, resolution at least 10 bits, communication protocol I2C or SPI) with low cost?

Thanks for your attention