Direction finding system and direction finding apparatus

• US 8,354,961 B2
• Filed: 12/16/2008
• Issued: 01/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Kawasaki, Yoshinobu
• Primary Examiner(s): Keith, Jack W
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mull, Fred H
• Application Number:
  US12/335,635
• Publication Number:
  US 20090179799A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,491 Days
• Field of Search: 342/442, 342/432, 342/441, 342/424, 342/443
• US Class Current: 342/442
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 3/48 the waves arriving at the antennas being continuous or intermittent and the phase difference of signals derived therefrom being measured

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a direction finding system including: a transmitter configured to generate a single carrier; a plurality of receivers, each of which has a receiving antenna; a phase comparison section configured to compare phases of signals received by the receivers to determine a phase difference between the received signals; and an information processing section configured to perform a computation process for direction finding based on the phase difference.

Claims

1. A direction finding system, comprising:

a transmitter configured to generate a single carrier;

a plurality of receivers, each of which has a receiving antenna;

a phase comparison section configured to generate relative phase information for signals that are received at each of the plurality of receivers in order to determine a phase difference between signals received at the receivers; and

an information processing section configured to perform a computation process for direction finding based on the phase difference, and wherein the phase difference information is determined based on analysis of a digitally converted version of the received signals, and further wherein the respective outputs from each of the receivers feed into separate mixers and the outputs from the mixers are filtered and transferred to respective converting circuits that respectively provide digital outputs that feed into a common phase comparator, and an information processing section resolves direction ambiguity based on determination of whether a rising/falling signal condition or falling/rising signal condition exists for a digitized received signal and a logical product signal.

2. The direction finding system according to claim 1, wherein said transmitter generates a frequency in a milli-wave zone.

3. The direction finding system according to claim 1, wherein the receiving antenna of each of said receivers is nondirectional or has the same directivity.

4. The direction finding system according to claim 1, wherein each receiving antenna is spaced from the other by a distance of equal to or less than λ

/2, where λ

is a wavelength of a transmitted signal.

5. The direction finding system according to claim 1, wherein,

each of said receivers once down-converts each received signal into an intermediate frequency signal using a mixer, and then converts the resulting intermediate frequency signal into digital form, and

said phase comparison section determines the phase difference using the digitized signals.

6. The direction finding system according to claim 5, wherein the mixer in each of said receivers performs frequency synthesis using a frequency produced by a single oscillator.

7. The direction finding system according to claim 5, wherein,

said phase comparison section is formed by an EXOR gate that takes an exclusive OR of two digitized received signals being compared,

said phase comparison section calculates a logical product of an output from the EXOR gate and one of the two digitized received signals being compared, to determine a period T_if of the down-converted received signal, and

said information processing section calculates an antenna angle θ

between a straight line joining the receiving antennas and a straight line joining a transmitting antenna and one of the receiving antennas, based on a phase difference ξ

between the signals received by the receiving antennas, the phase difference ξ

being obtained based on a phase difference τ

outputted from the EXOR gate and the period T_if of the down-converted received signal.

8. The direction finding system according to claim 7, wherein,

said information processing section determines a direction of the transmitting antenna by determining which of the two digitized received signals being compared is behind the other in terms of phase, based on how rising and falling of the logical product of the output from the EXOR gate and the one of the two digitized received signals being compared and the other of the two digitized received signals being compared occur when these two signals change in value at the same time.

9. A direction finding apparatus for finding a direction of a transmitter that transmits a signal, the direction finding apparatus comprising:

a plurality of receivers, each of which has a receiving antenna;

a phase comparison section configured to compare phases of signals received by said receivers to determine a phase difference between the received signals; and

an information processing section configured to perform a computation process for direction finding based on the phase difference, and wherein the phase difference information is determined based on analysis of a digitally converted version of the received signals, and further wherein the respective outputs from each of the receivers feed into separate mixers and the outputs from the mixers are filtered and transferred to respective converting circuits that respectively provide digital outputs that feed into a common phase comparator, and an information processing section resolves direction ambiguity based on determination of whether a rising/falling signal condition or falling/rising signal condition exists for a digitized received signal and a logical product signal.

10. The direction finding apparatus according to claim 9, wherein,

the transmitter transmits a frequency in a milli-wave zone to each of the receiving antennas, and

each receiving antenna is spaced from the other by a distance of equal to or less than λ

/2, where λ

is a wavelength of the transmitted signal.

11. The direction finding apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the receiving antenna of each of said receivers is nondirectional or has the same directivity.

12. The direction finding apparatus according to claim 9, wherein,

each of said receivers once down-converts each received signal into an intermediate frequency signal using a mixer, and then converts the resulting intermediate frequency signal into digital form, and

said phase comparison section determines the phase difference using the digitized signals.

13. The direction finding apparatus according to claim 12, wherein the mixer in each of said receivers performs frequency synthesis using a frequency produced by a single oscillator.

14. The direction finding apparatus according to claim 12, wherein,

said phase comparison section is formed by an EXOR gate that takes an exclusive OR of two digitized received signals being compared,

said phase comparison section calculates a logical product of an output from the EXOR gate and one of the two digitized received signals being compared, to determine a period T_if of the down-converted received signal, and

said information processing section calculates an antenna angle θ

between a straight line joining the receiving antennas and a straight line joining a transmitting antenna and one of the receiving antennas, based on a phase difference ξ

between the signals received by the receiving antennas, the phase difference ξ

being obtained based on a phase difference τ

outputted from the EXOR gate and the period T_if of the down-converted received signal.

15. The direction finding apparatus according to claim 14, wherein,

said information processing section determines a direction of the transmitting antenna by determining which of the two digitized received signals being compared is behind the other in terms of phase, based on how rising and falling of the logical product of the output from the EXOR gate and the one of the two digitized received signals being compared and the other of the two digitized received signals being compared occur when these two signals change in value at the same time.