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Low-cost tracking system

  • US 9,316,731 B2
  • Filed: 08/03/2012
  • Issued: 04/19/2016
  • Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2011
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method of tracking a target device with respect to a tracking device, the method comprising:

  • generating by a reference signal source in the tracking device, a reference signal;

    transmitting the reference signal along a first fixed wired path to first gating logic and along a second fixed wired path to a plurality of receivers;

    gating the reference signal by the first gating logic to feed the reference signal to a transmitter only during time intervals when the first gating logic is enabled;

    generating, by the transmitter, a wireless reference burst signal representing the gated reference signal, the wireless reference burst signal comprising a plurality of signal bursts during the time intervals when the first gating logic is enabled;

    receiving at each of the plurality of receivers, a re-transmitted wireless reference burst signal transmitted from the target device, the re-transmitted second wireless reference burst signal re-transmitted by the target device to the plurality of receivers in response to the target device receiving the wireless reference burst signal;

    comparing, with each of the phase comparator circuits, a first phase of the received reference signal to a second phase of the re-transmitted wireless reference burst signal when it is respectively received by each of the phase comparator circuits to generate respective phase comparison signals for each of the phase comparator circuits;

    in each of the plurality of receivers, enabling second gating logic during respective second time intervals following detection of the re-transmitted wireless reference burst signal by the respective phase comparator circuits;

    in each of the plurality of receivers, gating the respective phase comparison signals by the respective second gating logics in each of the plurality of receivers to feed the respective phase comparison signals to respective state machines of each of the plurality of receivers only during the second time intervals when the respective second gating logics is enabled to generate respective gated phase comparison signals for each of the respective receivers; and

    determining, by the state machines for each of the plurality of receivers, a coordinate of the target device in three-dimensional space with respect to a reference coordinate based on the respective gated phase comparison signals generated at each of the respective receivers.

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