Qualcomm Incorporated

Enmodus Limited

Philip John Young

Andrew James Heaton

Angelo Genghi

Andrea Cenciotti

Nestor Lucas Barriola

A wired communications device configured to: receive a spread-spectrum timing-reference signal through a wired communications medium, from a second wired communications device; detect a code-phase of the received timing-reference signal; and transmit data to the second device through the wired communications medium, with a timing that is defined relative to the detected code-phase. Also provided is a master device configured to communicate with the wired communications device. The master device is configured to generate and transmit a spread-spectrum timing-reference signal to one or more first devices, through a wired communications medium and to receive, through the wired communications medium, data transmitted by the one or more first devices.

Timing synchronization for wired communications

A transceiver for full-duplex communication. The transceiver comprises: a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter has a first oscillator circuit, for generating a transmit-carrier signal; and a first mixer, for up-converting a data signal to be transmitted by mixing it with the transmit-carrier signal, said data signal comprising a plurality of data symbols. The receiver has: a second oscillator circuit, for generating a receive-carrier signal; and a second mixer for down-converting a received signal by mixing it with the receive-carrier signal. The first oscillator and second oscillator are controlled such that there is a predetermined phase relationship between the transmit-carrier and receive-carrier signals at the start of each transmitted data symbol. The transceiver further comprises an interference cancellation circuit adapted to generate, based on the data signal to be transmitted and the predetermined phase relationship, an estimate of an interference component present in the received signal, and to compensate for the interference using the estimate.

Interference cancellation

A code generator, for providing a PRN sequence in a GNSS receiver, has the capability to store an internal status at any given point of the generated sequence. The stored status can be reloaded in the generator, upon an external command, or after a given number of generation cycles, thus slewing the phase of the generated PRN sequence to the value corresponding to the stored status. A parallel-correlation GNSS receiver includes one or more slewable code generators, for successively generating local replicas of GNSS PRN sequences, having different code phases, corresponding to a plurality of candidate signals of different code and Doppler shifts. Each time the code generator must switch from one candidate to a second, it is preemptively controlled or programmed, while generating the code for the first candidate, to store the internal status at the phase point almost aligned with the start of the PRN sequence for the second candidate. When the correlation engine switches from the first candidate to the second one, the stored status is loaded in the code generator, and the small misalignment between the code generator and the desired sequence is corrected, thus setting it at the needed point in phase space. The generator and receiver of the invention are well suited to the search of several GNSS signal in parallel, and require less memory than a table-based code generator.

Multiphase code generator and GNSS receiver

A method of detecting a transmission. The method includes: measuring, from a first portion of a received spread-spectrum signal, a first code-phase of a spreading-code; measuring, from a second portion of the signal, a second code-phase of the spreading-code; comparing the first and second code-phases; and detecting whether the transmission is present according to the result of the comparison. Also disclosed are corresponding methods and apparatus for transmission and reception of signals.

Signal detection in noise

A power-consumption monitoring device, for taking measurements of the power consumed by an appliance. The device is connectable to a mains electrical circuit and operable to transmit the measurements to a master device through the circuit. Also presented is a master device, for receiving over a mains electrical circuit power-measurements transmitted by one or more power-consumption monitoring devices. Also presented is a power-line communications network comprising: a master device; and one or more power-consumption monitoring devices.

Monitoring of power-consumption

A signal processing system and method for a GNSS digital signal wherein a carrier-stripped GNSS signal, is sampled according to a variable rate, determined by the code NCO, and including a timing circuit arranged to generate a timestamp code determining the sampling time of at least one of the samples in the buffer memory. By taking code samples in this way it is possible to transfer the samples asynchronously to a separate processor for the search task to be performed, for example an asynchronous parallel correlator implemented in the same silicon in hardware, or a media processor such as a graphics accelerator implemented in the same device or a separate physical device.

Global navigation receiver

A signal processor for GPS or other GNSS radiolocalization systems, includes a RAM pre-correlation buffer which is filled in sync with the code NCO, thus all sample alignment in the buffer is fixed The device further includes an amplitude compressor to limit the size of the buffer memory and is optimized to provide data to the following DFT unit in small bursts that can be processed in real time without the need for intermediate buffers. Thanks to these features the processor limits the amount of fast intermediate memories, is simpler and has lowerpower consumption.

GNSS signal processor

A Viterbi decoder which is based on a special instruction set implemented in the processor, enabling it to handle the Viterbi processing with a much lower CPU loading without significantly increasing the hardware complexity. By careful application of appropriate design constraints specific to the SV navigation and analysis of the Viterbi algorithm an optimised architecture can be realized for embedding Viterbi acceleration logic efficiently into a GNSS chipset.

Optimized Viterbi decoder and GNSS receiver

A device to perform DFT calculations, for example in a GNSS receiver, including two banks of multipliers by constant integer value, the values representing real and imaginary part of twiddle factors in the DFT. A control unit selectively routes the data through the appropriate multipliers to obtain the desired DFT terms. Unused multipliers are tied to constant input values, in order to minimize dynamic power.

Device for DFT calculation

A GNSS platform architecture with advanced tracking and search engines. The tracking and search functions are separated into 2 independent engines each highly optimized for their targeted functions.

GNSS receiver and signal tracking circuit and system

A GPS, GLONASS or Galileo receiver for radio positioning signals wherein at least a part of the computing of position related data based on radio signals received from a plurality of space vehicles is carried out by a graphics or sound processor. The receiver thus makes use of available computing resources, thus achieving a lower bill of material.

Receiver for radio positioning signals

The invention consists of a barometric pressure sensor, coupled to a processor for recording changes in the pressure over time, this is coupled to a GPS device providing an accurate measurement of the altitude which allows for the barometric pressure measurements to be normalized, typically to mean sea level. Once the measurements have been normalized the effects of the vertical motion of the sensor are effectively removed and the resulting trend shows the absolute atmospheric pressure which can then be used for weather prediction.

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Northhampton, United Kingdom

Philip John Young