Nordic Semiconductor Asa

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Daniel Ryan

Wei Li

Jean-Marc Valin

Carsten Wulff

Iain Bruce Collings

Eivind Sjøgren Olsen

Per Erik Sandgren

A method for determining a distance between an initiator radio transceiver and a reflector radio transceiver is provided. The method comprises the initiator radio transceiver transmitting a first radio signal at a first transmission time and the reflector radio transceiver receiving the first radio signal at a first reception time. The reflector transceiver samples the first radio signal using a sampling clock signal having a sampling period and determines a first reception-time value at a temporal resolution that is finer than the sampling period, including a fractional component representative of a fraction of the sampling period. The reflector transceiver transmits a second radio signal at a second transmission time that is offset from the sampling clock signal by an amount that depends on said fractional component so as to provide a predetermined dwell time that is determined to an accuracy finer than the sampling period. The initiator radio transceiver receives the second radio signal at a second reception time and determines a distance value representative of a distance between the initiator radio transceiver and the reflector radio transceiver.

Determining distance between two radio transceivers

An apparatus for demodulating a frequency-modulated signal comprises a joint frequency-offset & modulation-index estimator, and a signal demodulator. The joint estimator receives data representative of a preamble portion of the signal, modulated with predetermined preamble data. It jointly determines a frequency-offset estimate and a modulation-index estimate by using an optimization process that minimizes a cost function that is a function of the received data and that is parameterised by a frequency-offset parameter and by a modulation-index parameter. The signal demodulator receives data representative of a message portion of the signal, modulated with message data, and uses the frequency-offset estimate to demodulate the message.

Demodulating modulated signals

A radio system comprises a radio transmitter apparatus and a radio receiver apparatus. The radio transmitter apparatus is configured to transmit a continuous-wave radio-frequency signal having a first frequency. The radio receiver apparatus comprises: an antenna for receiving the continuous-wave radio-frequency signal; a local oscillator for generating a periodic signal at a second frequency which differs from the first frequency by a frequency offset; a mixer for mixing the received continuous-wave radio-frequency signal with the periodic signal to generate a down-mixed signal; and a processor or other circuitry configured to generate frequency-offset data from the down-mixed signal, wherein the frequency-offset data is representative of an estimate of the frequency offset. The processor or other circuitry is configured to use the frequency-offset data to generate DC-offset data representative of an estimate of a DC offset component of the down-mixed signal.

Apparatus and methods for DC-offset estimation

A method of, and apparatus for, demodulating a frequency-modulated signal. The method comprises: for each of a plurality of templates, performing a respective cross-correlation operation between the template and data representative of the frequency-modulated signal, each template comprising data representative of a signal that is frequency-modulated with predetermined preamble data using a different respective modulation index; generating frequency-offset data from one or more of the cross-correlation operations, the frequency-offset data being representative of a difference between a reference frequency and a carrier frequency of the frequency-modulated signal; determining a respective peak correlation-coefficient value from each of the cross-correlation operations; identifying a highest peak correlation-coefficient value in the determined peak correlation-coefficient values; determining a modulation index estimate in dependence on which template produced the highest peak correlation-coefficient value; and using the frequency-offset data and the modulation index estimate to demodulate at least a portion of the frequency-modulated signal.

Demodulating frequency-modulated signals

A receiver comprises a matched filter bank, decision logic and a frequency offset estimator. The matched filter bank comprises an input for receiving data representative of a frequency- or phase-modulated signal. The decision logic generates a sequence of demodulated symbol values from outputs of the matched filter bank. The frequency offset estimator determines a first phase value from a first output and a second phase value from a second output of the matched filter bank, the second output being offset from the first by L symbol periods. It also determines a phase adjustment value from an L-symbol subsequence within the sequence of demodulated symbol values, each subsequence value being determined from values output by the matched filter bank between the first and second outputs. It estimates a frequency offset based on the difference between the first phase value plus the phase adjustment value, and the second phase value.

Frequency offset estimation

A radio receiver comprises a matched filter bank and a decision unit. The matched filter bank has a plurality of filter modules for generating correlation-strength data from a sampled radio signal, each filter module being configured to cross-correlate the sampled signal with data representing a respective filter sequence. The decision unit is configured to use the correlation-strength data to generate a sequence of decoded symbols from the sampled signal. The matched filter bank and/or decision unit are configured to determine the value of each symbol in the sequence in part based on the value of a respective earlier decoded symbol from the sequence of decoded symbols.

Matched filter bank

A method of determining a distance between a radio frequency device and a target is disclosed in which the radio frequency device receives a radio frequency signal from the target. The method comprises determining a time domain channel response from the received radio frequency signal, determining an amplitude of a largest peak in the time domain channel response, determining an amplitude of a second, earlier, peak in the time domain channel response, comparing the second peak amplitude to a threshold based on the largest peak amplitude, identifying the largest peak as a shortest path peak if the second peak amplitude is less than the threshold, identifying the second peak as a shortest path peak if the second peak amplitude is greater than the threshold, and calculating the distance between the radio frequency device and the target based on a time corresponding to the shortest path peak.

Radio frequency distance determination

A digital radio receiver has a matched filter bank of filter modules for receiving phase- or frequency-modulated radio signals. Each module cross-correlates a sampled signal with a respective multi-symbol filter sequence, using a plurality of samples in each symbol period. The matched filter bank calculates first values (z(1)), for respective symbol periods, of a cross-correlation of the sampled signal with a first complex exponential function defined at sample points over one symbol period, and calculates second values (z(&#x2212;1)), for the respective symbol periods, of a cross-correlation of the sampled signal with a second, different, complex exponential function. A set of the filter modules cross-correlates the sampled signal with their respective filter sequences using an algorithm that takes, as input, the first values (z(1)) for symbol periods at which the respective filter sequence has a first value, and the second values (z(&#x2212;1)) for symbol periods at which the filter sequence has a second, different, value.

Matched-filter radio receiver

A radio communication apparatus receives or generates a base address seed, and generates data-channel access addresses from the seed. Each access address corresponds to a respective data-channel identifier, and is generated by setting a bit at a common first bit position to the value of a bit at a first common predetermined bit position in the base address seed or in the respective data-channel identifier; by setting a bit at a common second bit position to the bitwise complement of this value; and by setting one or more remaining bit positions in dependence on values at one or more bit positions in the base address seed and one or more bit positions in the respective data-channel identifier that are not the first common predetermined bit position. The apparatus can send or receive a radio data packet comprising an access address from the generated set.

Generating radio data-channel access addresses from a base address seed

Radio communication method and apparatus for generating data channel access addresses

Disclosed is a method of communicating a complex vector, using one or more index bits, the method comprising quantizing the complex vector using a codebook, the codebook comprising a plurality of complex vectors mapped from real vectors that lie on a reflected simplex where the simplex is of dimension one less than twice the length of the complex vector; indexing the quantized vector to form the one or more index bits; and transmitting the index bits to the transmitter, thereby communicating the complex vector.

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Trondheim, Norway

Daniel Ryan