Granted Patent B2

US 10,416,301 · App. 15/057,076 · Granted Sep 17, 2019

Abstract

Claims (26)

1. A system comprising:

a wireless transceiver configured to:

transmit, by a first node in a radio network to a second node in the radio network, a first radio frequency (RF) signal with a first frequency;

receive, by the first node, a second RF signal with a second frequency, where the first and the second frequencies are spaced apart by an amount of an intermediate frequency used to downmix the second RF signal at the first node and downmix the first RF signal at the second node;

transmit, by the first node, a third RF signal with a third frequency;

receive, by the first node, a fourth RF signal with a fourth frequency, where third and the fourth frequencies are spaced apart by the amount of the intermediate frequency;

receive, by the first node from the second node, a first value of a second phase determined by the second node from the first RF signal and a second value of the second phase determined by the second node from the third RF signal;

a phase measurement unit coupled to the wireless transceiver and configured to:

measure, by the first node, a first value of a first phase for the second RF signal;

measure, by the first node, a second value of the first phase for the fourth RF signal;

measure, by the first node, a first phase difference using the first value of the first phase, the second value of the first phase, the first value of the second phase and the second value of the second phase;

a control circuit configured to:

determine a first distance value using the first phase difference, a frequency difference between the first and third frequencies and second and fourth frequencies and a speed of light constant, wherein the frequency difference between the first and third frequencies and the second and fourth frequencies is the same;

determine one or more other distance values using one or more other previously determined phase differences, the frequency difference and the speed of light constant;

determine an estimated distance value by:

calculating at least one of an average of the first distance value and the one or more other distance values, or

calculating a channel impulse response from the first phase difference and the one or more other previously determined phase differences using a frequency transformation,

determining a frequency component of the impulse response with a shortest line-of-sight distance,

determining a transit time of the frequency component with the shortest line-of-sight distance, and

calculating the distance from the transit time and the speed of light.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the wireless transceiver is further configured to:

transmit, by the first node to the second node, a frame command to perform a distance measurement at the second node.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the control circuit is further configured to:

increase, by the first node, a transmission frequency for the third RF signal so that the transmission frequency of the third RF signal is higher or lower than a transmission frequency of the first RF signal.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first RF signal and the second RF signal are transmitted by the first node and the second node, respectively, in a first time interval delayed in time, and the third RF signal and the fourth RF signal are transmitted by the first node and second, respectively, in a second time interval delayed in time.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first RF signal, the second RF signal, the third RF signal and the fourth RF signal are transmitted according to Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.1 protocol.

Assignments (14)