Method of and apparatus for synchronization

• US 9,014,238 B2
• Filed: 10/22/2008
• Issued: 04/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Commissariat a L'Energie Atomique (AES Corporation), Nokia Corporation
• Original Assignee: Commissariat a L'Energie Atomique (AES Corporation), Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Jantunen, Joni, Arponen, Jarmo, Pelissier, Michal, Gomez, Bertrand, Varteva, Jaakko, Jantunen, Iiro
• Primary Examiner(s): PATEL, DHAVAL V
• Application Number:
  US12/739,846
• Publication Number:
  US 20110274141A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,372 Days
• Field of Search: 375/138, 375/219, 375/211, 375/228, 375/259
• US Class Current: 375/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7183 Synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2125 Synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0041 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0045 Arrangements at the receiver end

Abstract

A method and apparatus of synchronizing pulsed wireless communication between a first transceiver and a second transceiver. It includes the steps of transmitting a pulse signal from a first transceiver to a second transceiver; transmitting a reflection signal from the second transceiver to the first transceiver if the transmitted pulse signal is received at the second transceiver within an active reception period of the second transceiver; and detecting the reflection pulse to determine synchronization between the first transceiver and the second transceiver. Embodiments of the invention also relate to an apparatus for carrying out the method. In one embodiment, the reflection signal is generated by a super-regenerative oscillator.

Claims

1. A method for synchronizing active transmission and reception timeslots of transceivers, comprising:

transmitting a transmission pulse signal from a first transceiver to a second transceiver;

transmitting a reflection signal from the second transceiver to the first transceiver in response to the transmission pulse signal if the transmission pulse signal is received at the second transceiver within an active reception timeslot of the second transceiver and using timing information of a time of activation of the active reception timeslot by the second transceiver during which the transmission pulse signal has been received to establish active reception timeslots of the second transceiver for future communication; and

detecting the reflection signal with the first transceiver and using timing information of a time of transmission of the transmission pulse signal to establish active transmission timeslots of the first transceiver for future communication.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein a super-regenerative oscillator is used by the second transceiver to detect the transmission pulse signal during the active reception timeslot or to generate the reflection signal.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein the detection of the transmission pulse signal and the generation of the reflection signal are both made during the active reception timeslot of the second transceiver.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein a super-regenerative oscillator is used by the first transceiver to generate the transmission pulse during a first time slot or to detect the reflection signal during a third time slot following a second time slot corresponding to the active reception timeslot.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein, in response to the reflection signal, a detection signal is generated by the super-regenerative oscillator used to detect the reflection signal at the first transceiver;

the detection signal being then transmitted from the first transceiver to the second transceiver and the detection signal being received by a super-regenerative oscillator at the second transceiver within a fourth time-slot following the third time-slot.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein for each super-regenerative oscillator, a quench signal is used to enable build-up of a self-oscillation in the super-regenerative oscillator, and the time-slot for generation or reception of a signal being controlled by the quench signal.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein a signal is detected when the amplitude of the signal has exceeded a predetermined threshold.

8. The method according to claim 3, wherein the first transceiver transmits a sequence of pulses according to a set bit pattern during a series of time-slots, a transmission pulse being generated by the super-regenerative oscillator during one of the time-slots when a bit “

0”

or “

1”

is associated with this time-slot, and no transmission pulse being generated by the super-regenerative oscillator during one of the time-slots when a bit “

1”

or “

0”

is associated with this time-slot;

the set bit pattern comprising at least one “

0” and

one “

1”

.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the reflection signal is transmitted from the second transceiver to the first transceiver during a transmission time-slot different from the active reception time-slot, both time-slots being separated by a predefined delay.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein after a predefined time interval (tval) following the active reception time-slot, the method comprising the following steps:

transmitting a second transmission pulse signal from the second transceiver to the first transceiver;

transmitting a second reflection signal from the first transceiver to the second transceiver in response to the second transmission pulse signal if the second transmission pulse signal is received at the first transceiver within an active reception timeslot of the first transceiver; and

detecting the second reflection signal with the second transceiver.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second transceiver is synchronized with the first transceiver if the transmission pulse signal is received at the second transceiver within the active reception timeslot of the second transceiver.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first transceiver is synchronized with the second transceiver if the reflection signal is received at the first transceiver within a predefined reception timeslot.

13. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the steps of

transmitting a sequence of transmission pulse signals from the first transceiver to the second transceiver according to a pre-determined sequence;

transmitting a reflection signal from the second transceiver to the first transceiver in response to at least one of the transmission pulse signals if a transmission pulse signal is received in an active receptive timeslot of the second transceiver; and

detecting at least one reflection signal to determine continued synchronization between the first transceiver and the second transceiver.

23. A nontransitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for carrying out the method of claim 1, wherein the program instructions are run on a processor based device, a terminal device, a network device, a portable terminal, a consumer electronic device or a wireless communication enable terminal.

24. A chipset configured to execute the method of claim 1.

25. The method according to claim 1 wherein the communication between transceivers utilizes timeslots within a symbol period and ultra wideband (UWB) signals having a series of pulses which are used to convey data information during a timeslot.

14. An apparatus for synchronizing active transmission and reception timeslots of transceivers, comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a pulse signal;

a signal generator configured to generate a reflection signal in response to the received pulse signal if the received pulse signal is received within an active reception timeslot of the receiver and using timing information of a time of activation of the active reception timeslot by the receiver during which the transmission pulse signal has been received for synchronization of the receiver by establishing active reception timeslots of the receiver for future communication; and

a transmitter configured to transmit the reflection signal to a co-operative transceiver.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14 wherein the receiver or the signal generator includes a super-regenerative oscillator.

16. The apparatus according to claim 14 wherein the receiver or the signal generator are directly coupled to an antenna of the apparatus.

17. The apparatus according to claim 14, further comprising a detector configured to detect a second reflection signal transmitted by the receiver.

18. The apparatus according to claim 14 wherein the transceiver includes an RFID reader or an RFID tag.

26. The apparatus according to claim 14 wherein the communication between transceivers utilizes timeslots within a symbol period and ultra wideband (UWB) signals having a series of pulses which are used to convey data information during a timeslot.

19. An apparatus for synchronizing active transmission and reception timeslots of transceivers, comprising:

a transmitter configured to transmit a pulse signal;

a receiver configured to receive a reflection signal transmitted by a co-operative transceiver in response to the pulse signal if the transmitted pulse signal was received within an active reception timeslot of the co-operative transceiver; and

a detector configured to detect the reflection signal and using timing information of a time of activation of an active transmission timeslot during which the pulse signal has been transmitted to establish active transmission timeslots of the transmitter for future communication.

20. The apparatus according to claim 19 further comprising a super-regenerative oscillator to generate a detection signal in response to the reflection signal.

21. The apparatus according to claim 19, wherein the detector is configured to detect that the amplitude of the reflection signal has exceeded a pre-determined threshold.

22. The apparatus according to claim 19 wherein the transceiver includes an RFID reader or an RFID tag.

27. The apparatus according to claim 19 wherein the communication between transceivers utilizes timeslots within a symbol period and ultra wideband (UWB) signals having a series of pukes which are used to convey data information during a timeslot.