Ranging and communication multifunction system

• US 7,817,080 B2
• Filed: 10/18/2007
• Issued: 10/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Furukawa Electric Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Furukawa Electric Company Limited
• Inventors: Aoyagi, Yasushi, Kamimura, Kazutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Gregory; Bernarr E
• Application Number:
  US11/874,415
• Publication Number:
  US 20080304560A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,097 Days
• Field of Search: 342/27, 342/28, 342/52, 342/57, 342/58, 342/60, 342/118, 342/125, 342134-145, 342/175, 342189-197, 342/21, 342 29- 51, 342/61, 342 82-103, 342165-174, 381/110, 340 101- 106
• US Class Current: 342/57
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/0209 Systems with very large relative bandwidth, i.e. larger than 10 %, e.g. baseband, pulse, carrier-free, ultrawideband
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/10 using transmission of interrupted, pulse modulated waves determination of distance by phase measurement G01S13/32
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/006 using shared front-end circuitry, e.g. antennas G01S13/765, G01S13/825 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/4902 Pulse width modulation; Pulse position modulation

Abstract

A ranging and communication multifunction system including a transmission unit and a receiving unit, and integrates two functions of ranging and communication in which the transmission unit includes a transmission circuit, a carrier wave modification device, and a transmission antenna. The receiving unit includes a receiving circuit, a wave detector, a low noise amplifier, and a receiving antenna, and a data modulation performed in the transmission circuit uses a PPM system. Thus, the receiving circuit provides a ranging circuit and a communication separately, so that the demodulation processing of ranging and communication can be performed in parallel.

Claims

1. A ranging and communication multifunction system, comprising:

a signal generating device that generates a predetermined impulse signal, and modulates data by using a Pulse Position Modulation (PPM) impulse;

a carrier wave modulating device that up-converts the impulse signal by a predetermined carrier wave so as to generate a transmission signal;

a transmission antenna that transmits the transmission signal;

a receiving antenna that receives a signal in which the transmission signal is reflected by a physical object and arrives again;

an amplifying device that amplifies the receiving signal received by the receiving antenna;

a wave detecting device that detects an impulse signal from an output of the amplifying device; and

a receiving circuit that performs a predetermined processing by inputting the impulse signal detected by the wave detecting device, the receiving circuit including a ranging device and a communication device, the ranging device including an analog-to-digital converter and a plurality of range bins, the communication device including a high speed comparator and a digital-to-analog converter, the ranging device and the communication device being processed in parallel, wherein

an amplitude of the pulse signal detected by the wave detecting device is converted into a digital value by the analog-to-digital converter at every predetermined timing, is sampled to each of the range bins, and from among the sampling values of the range bins, a distance is calculated from the range bin which becomes a maximum, and

the impulse signal detected by the wave detecting device is compared with the output of the digital-to-analog converter by the high speed comparator so as to be binarized, thereby performing data demodulation.

2. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the signal generating device generates an ultra wideband baseband impulse of approximately 1 ns in pulse width.

3. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the pulse repetition cycle of the impulse signal is larger than a total sum of the maximum delay time from among time slots for the PPM and the minimum pulse repetition cycle of the signal generating device, and the maximum delay time of the time slot is smaller than the minimum pulse repetition cycle.

4. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the signal generating device generates a preamble signal comprising the predetermined number of pieces of impulse rows prior to modulating the data.

5. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the analog-to-digital converter converts an amplitude of the impulse signal detected by the wave detecting device into a discrete multi-value data (multi-bit digital signal).

6. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein a sampling by the ranging device is started by delaying by a delay time by the PPM, and is performed by shifting a timing in increments of the predetermined time intervals (offset) decided so as to interpolate resolution of the amplitude data accumulated in the range bin.

7. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the communication device starts the data demodulation based on the preamble signal.

8. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the signal generating device makes two consecutive pulses into one pair and performs the data modulation for a second impulse.

9. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 8, wherein a first pulse of the consecutive two pulses is a second impulse of the immediately preceding one pair of impulses or a pulse generated next to the second impulse.

10. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the signal generating device generates the impulse signal, and at the same time, generates a trigger pulse so as to transmit them to the ranging device.

11. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the communication device detects a reflected wave of the transmission signal based on the distance calculated by the ranging device, and performs the data demodulation by removing the reflected wave.

12. The ranging and communication multifunction system according to claim 1, wherein the communication device controls a threshold value of the high speed comparator so that the rising intervals of the output from the high speed comparator become appropriate.